The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1838.

The Crown, the Bishops, all the Colleges, the Lon-
cbn Companies, with sundry other Corporations, are
landowners ; and they can no more attend to cul-
tivation, and improve it, .than to making shoes. To
give all these parties a large income from the land,
whether they do any thing for it or not, is the last method
rational men would embrace to stimulate cultivation. But
that is precisely what the Corn-laws do. They give to the
landowners a large income, whether they cultivate the
land or not, and thus actually weaken, if not destroy, all na-
tural motives in the landlords to improve their estates. To
bar out competition is an acknowledged means to encour-
age idleness and sloth—to make reward proportionate to
negligence is sure to discourage enterprise and care, and
both effects are the result of the Corn-laws.
Let us appeal to experience. It is now 23 years since
the Corn-laws have been in existence. In that time, what
progress has cultivation made ? What improvements have
been made in agriculture ? What have the farmers gained ?
These are important questions, worthy of calm and serious
consideration. Let us first remark, that during the whole
period the nation has been at peace ; and that it has been
unanswerably proved, that the spring of population
which is the spring of national prosperity, and is empha-
tically the source of a continually increasing demand,
for the products of agriculture is of such vast power, that
it is only kept clown and kept in check by gaunt famine.
Prosperity, grertt and ever-growing prosperity, is the na-
tural condition of every peaceful and industrious society; and
what his been, during these twenty-three years, the condi-
tion of our agriculture ?
Since 1815, the population of Great Britain has in-
creased about five millions. In 1811, it was 11,966,364 ;
and, calculating by the ratio in which it increased to 1821,
it was in 1815 about 12,800,000. In 1831, it was
16,255,000, andcalculating by the ratio of increase between
1821 and 1831, it is now probably about 18,000,000, unless
indeed, which seems probable, the ratio of increase, which
diminished between 1821 and 1831, has diminished still
more since 1831. What has been, in the same period, the
increase of cultivation ? Mr. Ellman, who is an authority
on this subject, a practical agriculturist, and a decided ad-
vocate of the Corn-laws, has told us within this month, in a
letter addressed to a Weekly Journal, that it has not in-
creased at all. Here are his memorable, and for the Corn-
laws, damning words in speaking of some observations of
Mr. Jacobs :—" This, it must be remembered, was written
in 1814, since which our population has increased many
millions, without any corresponding increase in cultivation.
Indeed, taking England and Wales only, I doubt, f more
wheat is grown now than at that period. Scotland and
Ireland produce more wheat, but not more than sufficient
to meet our increasing population." Though our popula-
tion has increased five millions, and the population
of England and Wales alone more than four, who,
of themselves, constitute a prodigious stimulus to cultivation,
yet has cultivation under the " cold shade" of the Corn-laws
failed to increase. We may safely assert that this state-
ment is borne out by the reports of all the Committees
which have sat to inquire into the distressed state of agri-
culture since 1815, not one of which but has received evi-
dence that land has gone out of cultivation. But if this
be so, how has the increased mass been fed ? First, it is
worse fed than in 1814. Potatoes have supplied in many
cases the place of wheat. The condition of the population
has been deteriorated, and whole classes, like the hand-
loom weavers, starved out of existence. Second, a change
has been made in the diet of the people. Tea, coffee, and
sugar have been substituted for the products of the soil.
The consumption of malt has been stationary. Rice has
been eaten instead of wheaten flour. Oranges and the
dried fruits of southern climates have come much into use,
and form a part of the food of the people. Third, all
sorts of shifts are fallen on, and all the :hips and steamers
which can victual their men abroad do, and those
which pass backwards and forwards between the Con-
tinent and England not only purchase all their
provisions, now no inconsiderable quantity, abroad, but
manage to smuggle some in for the use of the wives and
children and friends of the crews. Looking at all these
sources of decreased comparative consumption of home
grown wheat, we readily adopt Mr. Ellman's conclusion,
that notwithstanding the population has increased five mil-
lions since the Corn-laws were passed, there has been no
increase of cultivation.

The lamentable and fatal consequence is, that we do not
now grow corn enough for our consumption, and every few
years we are obliged to import some, which circumstance,
as England forms no regular market for foreign corn, and
the grower is consequently not dependent on her, makes
her more painfully dependent, more beggarly and slavishly
dependent on the one or two countries which may have
corn to spare when we want it, than we could possibly be
if—by wheat being grown for our market—the growers
were reciprocally dependent on us. If we are to have a
war with Russia, we hope it will not be declared till after
our merchants have swept all the granaries of Odessa ; for
at present our prospects are such that if the Emperor of
Russia were now to forbid the exportation of grain from
'his dominions, nothing but some wonderfully productive
harvest next year could save our people from famine.
But Mr. Ellman says that cultivation has increased in
Ireland and Scotland. If it have it is compatible in Ire-
land with a most dreadful degree of deprivation. Thou-
sands of the people there live exclusively on the worst kind
of potatoes, and dwell in caves. In Scotland, too, a writer
in Tait's Magazine declares, that wages have not kept pace
with rise of the price of corn, and the condition of the
labourers must there also be deteriorated. According to
Mr. Cobbett's description of them, they seem wore off
than the English labourers. It is, therefore, quite cer-
tain, that under the Corn-laws the increase of cultivation has
not been commensurate with the increase of population.
Nothing being grown expressly for our people abroad, it
is plain that more of them have been called into existence
than provision has been made for ; and it is, therefore, cer-
tain that insufficient food, or actstLl famine, must every
year carry great multitudes to the grave.
Since 1815, what immense improvements have been
made in the unprotected manufacture of steam engines and
cotton cloth. Has any such improvement been made in
agriculture ? We know of none. Some triflingly better
methods of cultivation have been extended, rather than
brought into use—bone manure has been employed—some
attempts have been made to invent a steam-plough—some
success has been met with in cultivating moors and bogs—
but how trifling are these, compared to the magnificent in-
ventions, amongst a hundred others, of gas lights and
steam-ships.

It is io be remarked, also, that where agriculture has
been most improved since 1831, as in Scotland, it has been
more the consequence of improved modes of communica-
tion than of the Corn-laws. Those laws have produced
little or no improvement in Kent and Sussex, while, where
the railroad has reached, and the steam-boat has plyed,
the plough has been active, the agriculturist has been en-
terprising, and the land has been improved.
But another testimony may be found against the Corn-
laws, so far as the non-cultivation of the country is con-
cerned, in the population returns. It is remarked by Mr.
Rickman, in his abstract of the population returns for 1831,
" that the rate of the increase of the populationtof Great
Britain has not varied much during the last thirty years,
even when the increase or diminution of the Army, Navy,
&c., is then taken into the calculation?" Accordingly, we
find, that the rate of increase was from 1801 to 1811,
fourteen and three-eighths per cent. ; from 1811 to
1821, seventeen and one-half per cent. ; and -from
1821 to 1831, fifteen and one-half per cent. But dur-
ing almost the whole of the first period, the country
was at war, for the short and uneasy peace of Amiens did
not restore the commercial relations of the world. During
the last period our country has been wholly at peace, and
has been distinguished for the invention or improvement
of an immense variety of useful machines. Steam naviga-
tion and railroads have both come into use. Spinning-
mules have been much improved, and the arts of bleaching
linens and cottons, and of preparing cloths, have undergone
great changes. An immense mass of mechanical power
has been created. The unmolested sea has encouraged
our population to proceed in shoals to many of our colo-
nies ; and all such emigrations, as long as the commercial
connection with the mother country be preserved, increase
the home population. But with all these advantages,
population did not increase at so quick a rate between
1821 and 1831 as between 1811 and 1821. Thus our
population is actually increasing at a slower rate during
peace than during war—for we bad war part of the time
between 1811 and 1821—and that, too, while the com-
munity has increased wonderfully in ingenuity and skill,
and in all the wealth-creating arts except agriculture. The
diminished ratio of increase seems to prevail only in the
agricultural districts—as the following table of eight coun-
ties, four being chiefly manufacturing, and four being chiefly
agricultural, will shew :
INCREASE PER CENT. OF POPULATION.

MANUFACTURING COUNTIES. AGRICULTURAL COUNTIES.
18.11 1811 1821 1801 1811 1821
to to to to to to
1811 1821 1831 1811 1821 1831
Lancaster—Cotton 23 27 27 Devon lO 18►14 15%
W. R. 1 ork—Wool 16 22 22 Suffolk II 15 9
Warwick—lron..... 10 20 23 Cambridge l3 21 18
Statibrd—Potteries 21 18 20 Buckingham 9 14 t►
Durham—Coal ll 17 22 York, N.R 7 n 2
Mr. Marshall gives as the totals of ten manufacturing
counties in the three periods, 181, 201, 221 ; of eighteen
agricultural counties, 9k, 151, 10 2-3.
Of course increased cultivation cannot be carried on
without an increase of hands. In these four agricultural
counties the town population has increased, we believe,
more than the rural population, and hence it is palpable
that the increase of our agricultural population, has not
kept pace with that of the manufacturing population, though
the Corn laws were intended to check the growth of the
latter, and increase the former. , The check to our popu-
lation is taking place in our agricultural districts, and hence
the complaints of the misery of their population with which
the country has been inundated since 1820.
We tuke leave to say that such dupes of fats are mu*

more instructive than the tables which Blackwood has
borrowed from Mr. Porter of the relative importance of agri-
culture and commerce. Both are so mutually dependent
that one cannot thrive but the other will grow too ; and
if Blackwood had wished to make the comparison particu-
larly striking, he should have referred back three or four
hundred years ago, when only agricultural wealth was
known in the land. The fact is, that commercial and
manufacturing wealth are now increasing more rapidly than
agricultural wealth, notwithstanding the bounty given to
the latter by the Corn-laws; and though they have not, in
point of amount, overtaken it, they promise fair to do so if
left at liberty, adding to the 246 millions produce of agri-
culture 260 millions produced by commerce and manufac-
tures.*

The general fact that our population has not increased
so rapidly since 1821 as before, is calculated to excite some
apprehensions for the empire. We cannot believe that
the ratio has improved since 1831. Other countries,
such as Prussia and France, are rapidly increasing in
numbers, and if our manufacturing population, as seems
now likely to be the case in consequence of the Corn-laws,
should come almost to a stand still, the agricultural popu-
lation will decline, and Great Britain will see other coun-
tries go fast ahead of her. Such a result is not surprising,
for since the nominal peace our country has been exposed
to all the privations of war, wanting all its glories. Im-
mediately the war of arms ceased, the landlords began
their war against our commerce. The aristocracy was
bent on keeping down the peopled- and they substituted the
slow process of starvation for the more brilliant scheme of
military slaughter. The Corn-laws revived or continued
in their bad spirit and their ferocity the celebrated Milan
and Berlin Decrees, which were aimed, like the Corn-
laws, against our commerce. But the latter are much more
efficacious than the spite of Bonaparte, for obedience to
our own Legislature has tied our hands, and made the nation
its unresisting victim. The gulled and deluded people,
who spent their treasure and their blood to strike down
that lordly foreign Eagle, have since then had their bones
picked bare by our own home-bred carrion crows.
'We shall consider at some length the gain of the farmers
in another article.

In the excellent lectures lately delivered at Manchester
by Mr. Paulton, he observed, " The circumstances of your
position compel you, by natural causes to sell your surplus
goods in a foreign market ; but the landowner, by his Corn
and Canada Timber-laws, prevents you from buying in those
markets. The consequence is, that in reality the landowner
is both importer and exporter. He not orly forces the manu-
facturer to take his half measure of corn and pay a double
price for it, but he knows at the same time that the manufac-
turer can import nothing but luxuries, which the rich alone
want, and these luxuries, when imported, the manufacturer is
obliged to sell again for half their value to the landowner.
Was there ever such a refined scheme of systematic injustice ?"
In considering, therefore, the relative value of the produce
of agricultural and manufacturing labour the increased price
given to ail the products of agriculture, and the decreased price
of all the products of manufactures, must be taken into ac-
count. If we suppose this afourth,:the 246,600,0001., which
Blackwood says is the value of our agricultural produce, must
be reduced to 185,000,0001., and the products of the manu-
factures increased in the same proportion will also be
185,000,0001. But we place little confidence in these state-
ments, for we find nothing set down under either head for mi-
nerals, which belong rather to manufactures than agriculture.
fi Lest the statement in the text should appear harsh or ex-
aggerated, we must remind the reader that the manner in which
the upper classes, particularly the squires and the clergy, have
interfered with the amusements and employments of the
people, the readiness which they hare always shown to have
them sabred if they stood in their way, the contempt and scorn
which they and their writers express for the people, never re.
garding them of half as much importance as hares and part-
ridges, and the brutal manner in which they have always en-
deavoured to terrify them into submission, warrants the as-
sertion that they are the enemies of the people, and intended
by the . starvation-laws to keep them in poverty and de-
gradation.

CORN-LAW FALLACIES, WITH THE

ANSWERS.

(Continued from The Sun of Wednesday.)

_ •
193. —To all practical purposes, therefore, the continuance
of tho Corn-laws has becn, since the passing of the Reform
Bill, a matter of, no importance whatever ;—Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine, No. 277, for November 1838. Art.
The Corn Laws.

ANSWER.—It would be just as correct to say, that if a
man had had a sentry over him since the passing of the
Reform Bill, the practical consequences only began when
the sentry fired on him in 1838. There is a keeping back
of all that might have been done in the interval, had the
sentry not been there.

194. —the produce of the British islands during that period
having been fully equal for the maintenance of its numerous
inhabitants,—ld.

A.—lt maintained those that survived ; that's all.
But how many were ground down in Poor-houses, and died
in holes and corner elsewhere, through the inability to
keep themselves which was created by artificial means, is
never told.

195. and the prices so low, that, keeping in
view the certain advance that would have taken place in the
markets of the Baltic if the British ports had been entirely
thrown open, hardly any importation whatever would have
taken place from the continental states into this country. _ld.
A.—" Do not go where things are cheaper ; for if you
do, they will rise." Not a boy that leads a pedlar's ass,
will be moved by such an argument.

196.--And the experience of these years further demon-
strates the gratifying fact, that, without the assistance of any
foreign nations whatever, the farmers of the United Kingdom
are able to provide ample food for the maintenance of its own
inhabitants, and in such abundance, as to have rendered the
average price of grain for the five years preceding 1838 about
48s. a quarter only, being a lower rate than the average of any
five preceding years since the time of Charles
A.—They are able to provide the food, exception made
of the times when they are not. And when those times
come, the people are to be ground down by famine prices,
till their numbers are reduced to what can go on again upon
the landlords' allowance.

A little boy is allowed a peck of bran a-day to feed his
rabbits. " Mamma," says the little boy, "my rabbits live
upon their peck of bran, and have such nice young ones!"
The secret being all the while, that every time they have
more than can be kept upon the peck of bran, they are
starved off.

197.—8ut still the question of the Corn-laws has been
everywhere mooted, and in many places made the subject of
fierce invective against the Constitutional party ; and it can-
not be doubted, that in the next session of Parliament the
force of the Revolutionists will be in a great degree concen-
trated on the attack of that branch of our institutions......./d.
A.—What joy to the Revolutionists, to hear the Corn-
laws called a branch of our institutions! "We know now
what our institutions me made of." Such must inevitably
be the cry passed along their ranks.

193.—the Radicals now openly clamour for the objects
which we all along maintained they alone had at heart during
the Reform mania; they publicly admit that not participation
in, but exclusive possession of, supreme power, is the object
of their desire, and that unless they immediately get Annual
Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, and, the
Repeal of tha Corn-laws, all that they have hitherto ob-
tained is a mere mockery, and an aggravation of their suffer-
ings.—ld.
A.--They publicly admit no such thing ; they maintain
that when they have got all they ask, they shall have little
enough to protect themselves. They are perfectly aware
that " Wealth. is power ;" and that if the poor are disposed
to press the matter to niceties, they must have have an
overslaugh for that.
But on nne point, the " children of this world" show
most wit. Had the Radicals joined the Corn-laws to their
other objects, as their enemies do, they would probably
have broken into the fortress by its weak place. Their
enemies confess it, when they are brought so low as to be-
seech the Radicals to reflect on the discredit they would
bring on Reform, if they removed the Corn-laws.

199. —The argument which is constantly maintained against
the Corn-laws, is shortly as follows.
Wheat, it is said, can be raised in Poland at from twenty.
one to twenty-five shillings a quarter, and it may be laid down
at any time at any harbour in Great Britain at from twenty-
five to thirty shillings. If, then, the harbours were permanently
opened we should obtain provisions at little more than half
the price which we at present pay for them. The advantages
of such a change would be incalculable ; every poor man would
find himself suddenly in possession of double bis income. The
large surplus which would remain at the disposal of all classes,
after providing for, their necessary wants, would immensely
increase their general comfort, and proportionally augment the
quantity of the luxuries and conveniences of life they would
be enabled to purchase.—ld.
But
A.--If this means that everybody is to go on for ever-
more, being twice as rich as he was,—it is an enemy's re-
presentation .
hours'B ,t fooland
as
so
thee treated s e
;the accordingly.
working
classesN ob o d Nobody
know
hasbetter
been such a
workwb i
what theynste
ad e
want is
sixteen,isto habeythbeeieg day's
allowedfood for
t o
get it where they might.
twelve

200.—The home market for our manufacturers would thus
increase with the prosperity of all the industrious classes. The,
,
foreign vent for our manufacturing industry would be equally
extended by the vast impulse which would be given to foreign
agriculture by the increased demand for its productions in this
country, and the increased wealth which our extensive pur-
chases of their produce would diffuse through foreign
states.—/d.
A.—An enemy's statement, purposely made roundabout.
The simple demand is, that the manufacturers shall be al-
lowed to deal where they can get three bushels of corn for
a yard of cloth, instead of where they can only get two.
201.—is it, then, really certain that an unrestricted im-
portation of foreign grain would, in the long run, lower the
money price of provisions to the British labourers? • We aPt

prehend it is extremely doubtful whether it would have this
effect after the lapse of a certain number of years.-11.
A.—lf a thousand years hence, the world should be
found filled up, we shall be brought to the point where we
are now, and the English growers of dear corn may go on
again. The invitation held out to the labourers, therefore,
is, " Do not have cheap food now, lest at some unknown
time or other it should be as dear as ever."

202.—Nay, we have little doubt that the result in the end
would be that the price of subsistence would be raised to the
British consumer.—ld.

A.—lt cannot ; because if the price ever reached the
present height, the English corn-growing would go on as
before.
203.—Would the price of grain, at the end of five or seven
years, remain at the low standard to which it had been reduced
by the sudden influx of foreign competition ?—ld.
A.—Who ever thought it would ? But it would rise
only by the proportion, which the capability of an increased
produce in all the world bears to the quantity wanted for
Great Britain. As well ask walled-up Birmingham,
whether she thinks corn would always remain at the low
price it was the day she opened her gates. It would in-
crease in the proportion which the wants of Birmingham
bear to the produce of the whole country from which they
can be supplied. A precious reason to give the men of
Birmingham for keeping fast their gates !

204. —What, then, would be gained by such a change but
an alteration in the class and the nation by whom our subsist-
ence W 23 to he furnished ? The home-growers would be de-
pressed as much as the foreign growers would be encouraged
in their operations. —ld.
A.—And the people of Birmingham would get the
corn they wanted, instead of going without. Nobody was
asking whether there was to be a balance between the gains
and losses of home and foreign growers. They were ask-
ing why the people of Birmingham should be starved by
keeping fast their gates. What care the people of Bir-
mingham, whether the losses of the growers of corn in
flower-pots inside, and the gains of the cultivators outside,
are equal or not ?

205. —The market would not in the end overflow ; it would
only be competently supplied, and depend in part on foreign
instead of domestic industry.--Id.
A.—As well say that Birmingham would not in the end
get more corn by opening her gates. The strategem is in
diverting the attention from Birmingham's getting more
corn, to whether the gains and losses of the producers in-
side the walls and out, are equal.
20G.—If Poland and Russia produce more for the British
manufacturers, Great Britain and Ireland would produce
less.—ld.

A.—But would they produce as much less ? Beware
:as Lord Stanley would say) of thimble-riggers.

207.—Farming, to the extent of perhaps three millions of
quarters annually, would be destroyed in the British isles,
and farming to a similar extent would be called into existence
on the banks of the Vistula or the Dnieper. But there could
not be any permanent increase of the supply over the de-
mand.—/d.

A.—Could there be no permanent increase over the pre-
sent supply, is the question. Is not the fact staring us in
the face, that the British manufacturers are to exchange a
yard of cloth for more corn with the farmers on the Vistula
or the Dnieper, than they could with the men calling them-
selves farmers at home ? And is not the simple reason why
they can get more corn, that the corn is produced with half
the labour ?

2438.—The fundamental error of the opponents of the Corn-
laws on this point is, that they suppose two things to continue
which can never co-exist in the same country, or even in the
same district of country, viz., permanently reduced prices, and
a permanently overflowing supply.-Id.
A.—As well plead for making wine in hothouses, and
tell us there is no such thing as permanently reduced prices,
and a permanently overflowing supply. There is a per-
manently increased supply, under the prices of the monopo-
lists with hothouses.

209.—The main ground of their [the manufacturers']
numerous and at present well-founded complaints against the
British Government is, that they have neglected to stipulate
for the advantage of importation at moderate duties with the
other countries with whom we have concluded reciprocity
treaties. Yet, strange to say, they do not see, or affect not
to see, that a similar result must ensue from the unrestricted
importation of foreign grain into the British harbours, and
that the same necessity which would compel the one half of
the iron-masters of France to blow out their furnaces if the
hardware goods of Birmingham and Carron were admitted
duty-free into the French harbours, must compel the British
farmer to consign a large portion of his fields to the heath-
fowl and the plover, if Polish grain is admitted duty-free to the
British harbours.—ld.

A.—An attempt to shift the question. The question is
—not what might come to paSs if we could make the
French remove the duties on English manufactures—but
by what right the farmer is to take an unjust and artificial
portion of the land from the heath-fowl and the plover, at a
double loss to the manufacturer and the community at
large ; and why the manufacturer should not at least com-
pensate himself; by depressing the farmer in turn through
a tax on home-grown corn, which is the point the manufac-
turers are now preparing to march upon.
The agriculturists are robbed in France, through being
prevented by their own government from obtaining
British manufactures ; and that is given as a reason why
the British manufacturers should be robbed by ours,
through being prevented from obtaining foreign corn. Sup-
pose the British government were able at one sweep to
remove all the foreign duties on British manufactures, that
w'ould not move a step towards establishing the justice of
cutting off the manufacturers from foreign corn.

210.—Eggs, poultry, and vegetables are brought to the
Glasgow market, by the steam-boats from Ireland and the
Highlands; but these articles arc just as dear in the Glasgow
market now as they were before steam-power was applied to
the purposes of navigation. The small farmers of Renfrew-
shire and Lanarkshire have been as much depressed by the
change as tlioE,e of Ireland and Argyleshire have been benefited.

—ld.
an auld wife in Glasgow will believe it. If the
small farmers of Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire do not
'bring their eggs to market, why is it but because they can-
not bring them as cheap as those brought by the steam-
boats ? Out of the mouths of old women shall ye be
judged.

211.—And it has been proved, in one memorable instance,
running through a course of centuries, that a great people
derive no permanent benefit in the form of a reduction of the
prices of the necessaries of life, by a free importation of grain
from distant states. By the extension of their power over
all the nations adjoining the Mediterranean, as well as by the
incessant clamours of the Roman populace for cheap bread,
the Roman Government was early obliged to admit a free im-
portation of grain from Sicily, Lybia, and Egypt, the great
granaries of mankind in ancient times. And what was the
result ? Exactly what we contend would ensue from the appli-
cation of a similar principle to the British islands. The
Italian cultivation was destroyed as much as the African or
Egyptian was increased ; the price of grain underwent no
diminution to the Roman populace, but was fully higher, on
an average, than it has been in England for the last ten
years, while the small arable farms of ItalY, the nursery
Of the legions, were absorbed in great sweeps of pasture ; the
race of independent cultivators was destroyed ; the strength of
the vitals of the state was consumed ; and at length the inde-
pendence of the central provinces of the empire was destroyed,
-and the Mistress of the World, as Gibbon has remarked, came-
to depend for her subsistence upon the floods of the Nile. —ld.
[Extracts from Blackwood s, to be concluded on Wednesday.]

A.—We must not be run down by pedagogues. How
do they know the price of grain underwent no diminution
to the Roman populace ; when, if it had not, the Italian
cultivation would have held up its head as much as ever ?
What is the necessity for the wheat procured from Egypt
and Lybia, being as much and no more than was cut off
from Italian cultivation ; when the f►►ct perhaps was, that
it was produced with half the labour ? And what has the
price of grain in England to do with the matter ; the ques-
tion being only, whether the Romans got corn cheapest by
buying it where it was cheap? What is proved by the
" great sweeps of pasture," except that the Romans had
bread, and beef to it ? If the " Mistress of the World"
could not live on Italian corn, the inference is, that
she was too big a " Mistress." She had her choice, be-
tween being the great Rome that ate the corn of half
the world, and the little Rome that lived on the produce of
the Patrician fields upon the Tiber.