The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-04 00:00:00

A PASSAGE IN THE EDINBURGH

REVIEW.

In the elaborate and able article in the "Edinburgh
Review" on the Budget, there is one passage to which, as
part of an unsound theory, the foundation of many prac-
tical errors, we wish to direct the attention of the writer
and the public. On the 27th ult. we quoted a passage,
stating, we think, with great accuracy, that every increase
in the quantity of manufactured commodities diminishes
the relative cost of production, and exhibiting very con-
c;sely and clearly the advantage of an increased and in-
creasing demand. In order to contrast it with thepas-
sage we object to we shall re-produce it :
" The . explanation is to be found in the well known
law of manufacturing industry, that, ceteris paribus,
with every increase of the quantity produced the relative
cost of production is diminished ; and, what is the same in
different words, that with every diminution of the quan-
tity produced the relative cost of production is increased.
'The larger the production the greater is the division of
labour, and consequently the skill of the workman, the
smaller the expense of superintendence, the more exten-
sive the use of machinery ; in short, every element of
production becomes relatively more efficient, and every
source of expense is relatively diminished."
In the same article is the following passage. Speaking
of Sugar, the Reviewer says :
" The price for the first five years having been some-
what ,under 225. Gd per cwt., and during the last five
'years rather above 225. 90., a new demand for the in-
ternal consumption of the British islands will of course
have a tendency to create a rise in the foreign sugar
markets ; under that general law affecting the cost of the
production of all agricultural produce, namely, that with
every decrease of demand the relative cost of production,
and, consequently, the price, rises ; just as, with every di-
minution of demand, the cost of production, and conse-
quently the price, falls."
We have marked in italics the two sentenees in the two
passages to which we request attention, and we ask
whether the great difference between " the law of
manufacturing, industry," and the "general law affecting
the cost of the production of all agricultural produce,"
described by the Reviewer, and assumed as a principle
in the doctrines of modern political economists, really
exists ? The question and the subject are of no trifling
importance. The opinion announced by the Reviewer is
the basis of a great body of doctrines, and, therefore, it
is worthy of a strict examination.
It must first be noticed that the Reviewer contrasts
" manufacturing industry," and " agricultural produce,"
which may tend to some confusion ; but his. conclusion
applies to the cost of the produce, both of manufactures
and agriculture, and he maintains, in fact, that it is a law
that with an increase of demand, the cost of the produce
of manufactures diminishes, and the cost of the produce
of agriculture increases. We cordially subscribe to the
first statement, we deny the latter ; we deny that there
exists a -law which causes an increase in the cost of pro-
duction with; every increase of demand for agricultural

produce.
The writer conies to this conclusion, in common with a
school of political economists, by looking only at one fact
in the whole complicated process of production ; or
rather one assumption ; namely, that every increase in
the demand for agricultural produce forces men to culti-
vate less and less fertile soils. Supposing that such
were the fact, he overlooks all the counteracting circum-
stances ; but we must first inquire is the assumption true?
Are all, or were all the most fertile soils first occupied?
Fertility is a term relative to knowledge, and as know-
ledge advances soils that were not before fertile become
so. For example, "by the newly imported practice of
furrow-draining," says Mr. M'Culloch, " large tracts
that were formerly comparatively unproductive have
been rendered capable of bearing heavy crops ;" that is,
large tracts have been rendered more productive or more
fertile than they were before. They have been made
more fertile than other land previously considered to be
superior in fertility to them. It is- well known that ex-
tensive tracts of land in Norfolk and Lincolnshire have
been made, within a few years, by the application of
modern skill, much more productive of wheat, that is,
more fertile, than almost any of the land that was pre- ,
viously brought into cultivation. It is not the fact,
therefore, that what men call the most fertile fields were
first occupied, and there is, therefore, no reason to assert
that men are driven to have resource to less and less fer-
tile soils for a subsistence. No man who knows anything
of agriculture will assert that the land last broken up
either in England or Scotland yields less than the land
first ploughed in either country a few centuries ago.
But this question is universal, and when we speak of
the general law of mankind having recourse to less and
less fertile soils, we must include the whole earth. It
will not be fair in discussing such an extensive principle
to confine ourselves to England, to which an arbitrary
law limits our people to obtain their supplies of food. We
must look abroad ; and there we see that the plains of the
Mississippi, and the Pampas of South America, can be
used to supply us with food ; 'and those countries, ac-
cording to the best information we possess, are quite as
fertile as the most fertile parts of Europe, whether we
speak in reference to the knowledge at present possessed,
or the knowledge possessed a few centuries ago. It is
not true, then, that the most fertile wilt were first occu-
pied, and not true that we know in what fertility consists,
so as now and at all times to select for cultivation those
soils which will be in future the most fertile. No man,
in fact, can say, looking to the past progress, that those
soils which are now the least will not, in after times, be-
come the most productive.
In Mr. M'Culloch's work on the " Statistics of the Bri-
tish Empire" there is a somewhat striking illustration of
the improvement of productive power, or of fertility,
which is the same thing, by means of knowledge, which
we shall quote ; remarking by the way, that those who,
like Lord Stanley and Mr. Pusey, persist in calling agri-
culture a science, will perhaps point out how the science
of astronomy or of botany has improved the movements
of the stars or the structure of plants, as the art (science)
of agriculture has improved the fertility of the soil. We
must add, that we quote such instances from Mr. M'Cul-
loch as unexceptionable authority, because he is one of
the leading advocates of the doctrine we impugn :
" The following statement of the comparative weight
of the produce annually afforded under the system of
farming followed in East Lothian, as described by Lord
Belhaven, and that which is now followed, is taken from
a paper by Mr. Oliver, of Lochend, near Edinburgh, one
of the most intelligent and extensive practical farmers
in the empire
" The mode of cropping at the former period (1723)
was—first, peas ; second, wheat • third, barley ; fourth,
oats ; the produce being about three seeds, but, to pre-
vent all cavil, say four seeds. Thus taking the seed for
each acre at one boll,* over a farm of 100 acres,t is 400
bolls. The quantity of straw for each boll of such a
crop could not exceed 15 stone, which on 400 bolls gives
6,000 stone, or 42 tons 154 cwts. of straw, to be con-
sumed to the stock, and returned to the, land in the shape
of manure. But upon a farm of 100 acres, cultivated as
at present—viz., a fourth turnips ; a fourth wheat, or
barley ; a fourth rover, or rye grass, pastured or made
into hay. and consumed on the farm ; and a fourth oats,
"or wheat ; the account would stand thus :-50 acres of
wheat, barley, and oats, at 8 bolls per acre, which we
arc convinced is not above the average crops of the beat
district of East Lothian (and such only was cultivated
when Lord Belhaven wrote), this, allowing, as above,
15 stone of straw for each boll, gives 120 stone per acre;
which, over 50 acres, makes in all 6,000 stone of straw,
or 42 tons 154 cwts. ; being equal to the quantity pro-
duced by the whole 100 acres under the old system.
Now, suppose that the 25 acres of clover and rye grass
are made into hay (which, however, is not the mode
practised, nor the best mode of obtaining the greates
quantity of manure, and keeping up the fertility of the
soil), and that each acre yields 200 stone, the total
quantity will be 5,000 stone, or 35 tons 14 1-10th cwts.;
and add to this 500 tons of turnips, being the produce
of 25 acres, at 20 tons per acre, which is by no means
above a fair average crop. Upon these data, the weight
of materials produced annually for manure under the
old and new systems will be as follows :
Stones. Tons. Cwt. '
" Old system Straw . . 6,000 42 1514
New system Straw ... 6,000 42 iq
Hay 5,000 35 14 1-10.
Turnips 70,000 500
" Thus making the weight of materials to be con-
verted into manure under the new system, in round
numbers, 577 tons ; while under the old system the
quantity is only 42 tons, leaving a balance in favour of
the new system of 533 tons per annum, being more than
rt fertility
ofn.
gress of agriculture. And,
n f
twelve times the whole quantity produced under the
r.
aanrd as
upon
old. Nothing more is necessary to show the superiority
keepingthis
dependsup the
the
of
thet h e
soilnew issysteme o ed n
inn
d, as to the question of
compa-
rative profit, it would be easy to show, from unques-
tionable data, that time is as superior new system
old in this respect as it is in the supply of manure
to the
manure ; but
this, we think, must be abundantly obvio
who contrasts the almost imperceptible mile to every onece
aviculture, and in the accumulation of vs
agriculturalmade in
ca-
pital for many centuries, with the extraordinary
during the last seventy years, or since progress
the new system
was introduced."—Statistic 1 aAccount of the British Em-
pire, vol. i., page 563.
That is a proof in detail, not of the less
and less, but
of the greater and greater productive in agricul-
ture, or of the less and less cost of rorewtieern
ns
hde-
mand has increased. To illustrate the same fact in a much
more general way, we will
mention that the population
of Great Britain was estimated in King William's reign
at 7,200,000, and the whole annual produce of the land
was estimated at 32,482,630/. In George M.'s reign
Arthur Young states the population at 9,350,000, and
the whole annual produce at 72,826,8271. Thus while
the population had increased two-ninths, or less than a
quarter, the agricultural produce had very nearly
doubled. There is no reason to believe that more persons
were engaged in agriculture at the latter period than at
the former ; on the contrary, the presumption is the
other way, and the increase in the amount of wealth,
therefore, shows the increased productive power of the
People, or of what is called fertility. of the soil.
We apprehend the same process
is still going on. The
n
population of Great Britain, according to the censusf
o
1831, was 16,265,865. Mr. M'Culloch,i
writing
n 1837,
estimates the value of the a
agricultural produce a t
145,855,0001. By this statementonl asit pp
y 7to appears, '
that while
aural
the population has increased
14 to 145; or tenfgroicult ld. "We
produce has increased
. thas
e
know that, in modern tunes, er has be en a gradual
decrease of the number of hands engaged in agriculture,
whence it follows that, instead of the labour becoming
less and less productive as the population has increased,
which constitutes the demand for agricultural produce, it
has been more and more productive, or the soil has be-
COW, more and more fertile, or the cost of agricultural
produce has become, like the cost of manufacturing pro-
duce, less and less.
\V c shall, perhaps, resume the subject.

* Ono East Lothian boll of wheat was equal to nearly
4 bushels ; a boll of barley to near 6 bushels.
The Scotch acre, equal to 2,161 imperial acres, is
here referred to.