The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-01 00:00:00

,

THE PRICE OF BREAD.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SlR,—Having read a paragraph in your paper of No-
vember 23, taken from the Sunday Times, relative to
the price and produce of each sack of flour. I must say
I feel surprised that persons so exceedingly ignorant of
the baking trade should attempt to advance an argu-
ment upon a subject they know so little about, and by so
doing mislead the public by an erroneous and incalculable
statement, as it is well known, even to the most inex-
perienced men in the trade, that neither the average
price of a sack of flour, nor the number of loaves it pro-
duces, correctly is given by the correspondent of the
Times. And, in order to bear out my remarks upon the
article referred to, I am prompted to lay before you, as
far as my humble experience will allow, a simple state-
ment of the average price of a sack of flour, according to
the present market returns. Good flour cannot be
bought under 48s. to 525., and that, if well manufactured
may produce 90 41b. loaves. Nov, the general price of
bread throughout the metropolis does not exceed lid. or
Bd. the loaf ; so that it will be clearly seen that for every
50s. (I take the intermediate price), the gross produce of
90 loaves at 7id., realises but 565. 3d., 3s. of which, and
I cannot say less, must be allowed or the expenses of
baking, &c., leaving the baker a solitary 3s. 3d. for
house and other domestic expenses, instead of the very
enormous and unjust profit of 145., as allowed by the
deeplyd sr kups
eetur lastl
ba
obrefl
overwise calculator of the Times. Now, Sir, this may
appear rather inconsistent with reason; but it is an in-
rye finesgatiottmint aebiolsyetf hnwnobt
oiuhurtgiseichl s
)I
thatam freea
moreto
yhnetshse mightdtes
abolished,t existbaldetestable
dp a
r ab:tmtiwcoeereeonfuthne
un-
derselling
rea-
sonable profit obtained without such injury to the public
as these continual fluctuations in the price of bread are
likely to occasion ; hut, Sir, it may be said the art,eie
referred only to the full-price trade-9d. In that case
the argument is not strengthened, for the full-priced
baker generally pays a much heavier price than thar I
have already allowed, and in 90 cases out of 100 is com-
pelled to wait some three, six, or even twelve months k,r
the return of his capital, which, surely, to Fay the 1..,
of it, entitles hiin to some little extra profit, or interest,
;'or his outlay ; so that it is evidently clear from these
calculations—and I challenge a contradiction to the trnth
of it—that neither the one class of bakers or the other
are reaping such very princely profits by this ready
money and, ever-turning trade, as this well-informed
person will have it ; but there is certainly a repeated
Tirit of (ppn.it:op •'arried on by what may be termed
the more opulent class of tradesmen, who in s..me
instances are led by their selfish and capricious desires
t,, pursue this system, with a view only of crushing and
keying back the more humble class of their fellow. men.

fmUst now, Sir, apologise for thus intruding upon
your time; but being a staunch advocate for fair prices
and reasonable profits, I have presumed to offer tLe•e
few remarks in reply to the statement of the Sunday
Times, with a view, if possible, of preventing a repetition
l'f such inconsiderate calculations being set forth in the
public journals, by persons whose only desire muse be to
create a feeling 'of discontent among the poorer or work-
10g-clastes of the country, instead of endeavouring, as
they should do, to promote good feeling between Man
and man, and securing for them, if possible, cheap bread,
at a fair and consistent price.—l am, Sir, &c.,
HENRY THORNTON.
27, Lambeth-walk, Nov. 28, 1846.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN
RUSSELL, M.P.
LETTER NO. 11.

My Lord,—l said in my last that the best, if not the
only, mode of escaping from the evils necessarily atten-
dant upon the extensive cotter system established in
Ireland, was to make the situation of the agricultural
labourer better than that of the five-acre rent-paying,
labour-seeking tenant, and that this was not a difficult
task, although assuredly one of time : to a certain ex-
tent it must be the work of landlords, aided and assisted
by Government, but:still only assisted ; Government can
do no more. If it were so make the attempt to do every-
thing, as proposed by Mr. Scrope's Bill, failure must
ensue. Sir Walter Scott's excellent definition of tho
profits of a farming landlord, " That the carte havers and
the cart havers made it all, and the eerie havers anti the
cart havers ate it all," would be a large return tor a Go-
vernment landlord cultivating waste land. Your Lordship
is aware that I am writing upon a subject on which I
have had considerable experience for many years ; few
have reclaimed more waste land than myself, but, for- -
tunately, before I began I was fully convinced of the ne-
cessity, if I wished my operations to be either profitable
or extensive, of confining them merely to setting an
example of what could be done, and giving suitable en,
couragement to men of skill and enterprise to carry
out my plans ; and it is the duty, and it is the
interest, of the Irish proprietor to do this work ;
for he has now learned, from bitter experience,
that until that population, which he or his predecessors
have induced to settle upon his land, is fed from his
land, he cannot receive, nor, indeed, is he entitled to re-
ceive, one shilling rent. A bad administration of a good
poor-law was some years ago rapidly absorbing the
rental of the English proprietor ; the want of all poor-
law is accomplishing the same end for the Irish landlord;
but let the principle—that the first burthen upon land
is the support of the people dwelling upon it—be as firmly
established in Ireland as it is in England, and the Irish
proprietor will exert himself to avert the evil, in which
case Government will, with the approbation of all parties,
cheerfully assist him in providing for the labourer the
two things which are necessary to make him better off
than a live-acre tenant, namely, employment at fair
wages, and a comfortable house and garden at moderate
cost.

The first question is, what is the number of persons
who would require to be found with those necessaries of
life ? and to ascertain this, the first point to establish is,
the smallest number of acres which will constantly em-
ploy a man and his family, and take them entirely out of
the labour market ; this must, of course, depend upon
the quality of the soil, and the number and respective
ages of the family, but, taking the average of each, I
would say 15 was the smallest number of acres which
could be safely calculated upon to find the occupier suffi-
cient employment, and enable him to pay a fair rent.
If this be near the truth, it is not difficult to
answer the first question with sufficient accuracy for all
practical purposes ; and to render the answer more dis-
tinct, I would take the case of a proprietor of one
thousand acres, whose land is let in a similar manner to
that of the aggregate quantity of cultivated land in
Ireland—say 300 acres in farms of 5 acres, occupied by
sixty tenants ; 300 acres in farms of 20 acres, occupied
by fifteen tenants, and 400 acres occupied by two tenants,
who are of course the only steady employers of labour ;
and, reckoning four labourers to each, 700 acres may be
supposed to have occasion for sixteen. Dividing the 300
acres into farms of 15 acres, instead of 5 acres, twenty
families out of the sixty would, in future, be provided
with labour upon land in their own occupation, which,
with the sixteen who are employed by the two tenants
of the 400 acres, would leave about twenty-four who
would require to be provided with employment from
other sources ; reckoning four of these to be constantly
employed upon railroads, there would remain twenty, or
about one-third of his original sixty five-acre tenants to
be provided with employment. Neither your Lordship
nor the public will suppose that I have made this calcu-
lation with any idea of its being mathematically correct;
all I have wished is to arrive at a fair estimate of the
magnitude of the evil; and one proof that the calculation
is not very erroneous may be found in the fact, that,
taking all circumstances into consideration, the number
will nearly correspond with those now seeking public
employment.
The number of five-acre farms in Ireland has been
stated to be 300,000; according to the above calculation
it will be necessary to find permanent employment for
one-third, or 100,000 heads of families. Is it possible
to effect this? I think it is, provided landlords do their
duty and are properly assisted by Government. The
quantity ot waste land in Ireland capable of being pro-
fitably reclaimed is calculated to amount to three mil-
lions, and this would give thirty acres to each of the
100,000 heads ot families who would require employ-
ment. This is the plan proposed by Mr. Scrope, whose
Bill provided that the farms should not be more than
100 acres, and not less than ten acres. Passing over
the grave, indeed the insuperable, objection, which it is
astonishing never occurred to a gentleman of such ac-
knowledged ability, that such a division of property
would be the certain pal ent of the very evil which ri'w
pisses i•ipo n Ireland, let me for a moment examine
how his plan would work. Such land must be occu-
pied by one of two classes of the existing tenantry, eith.r
by those who had saved a little money in their present
possessions, or by those who had nothing, and were
literally living from hand to mouth, paying their rent
out of the harvest wages acquired in England and the
sale of their pig. If the waste land were to be occupied
by the former class the situation of the Irish landlord is
made worse than at present, by depriving him of the
()ay tenants capable of properly cultivating his land,
and of course paying rent; it by the latter class what is
their situation?—Hones to build, lands to enclose, im-
plements to purchase, farms to stuck, and not a shilling
in the world. 1 hope I need not say that the system
would propose is widely different, and it has this recom-
mendation, that it has been tried and has succeeded; but
this must be the subject of a future letter.—l have the
honour to remain your Lordship's most obedient servant,
R. W.

THE WE AT H EL—THE PROS T.—For these last
three nights the metropolis has been visited by frost.
On the night of Saturday it had become somewhat in-
tense, and continued throughout Sunday and yesterday
with increased severity. Yesterday morning the ponds
and stagnant waters in the suburbs were covered with
ice three-quarters of an inch in thickness, which was for
the most part removed to the various confectioners., The
Serpentine and the ornamental waters in St. James s and
the Regent's-park were skimmed over with ice, and con-
sequently Mr. Superintendent Williams of the Royal
Humane Society, was busily engaged in examining and
preparing their apparatus, in anticipation of an imme-
diate approach of the skating season. The thermometer
at the Royal Humane Society's receiving-house stood at
six o'clock yesterday morning at 28 deg., or 4 deg. of
frost; at eight o'clock last evening it had ascended to
30 deg. A very slight fall of snow descended shortly
before nine.

BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.—The tenth an-
niversary meeting of the society was held last evening at
the society's rooms, 20, Bedford-street, Strand, J. E.
Gray, Lq., F.R.S., &c., in the chair. From the report
of the council it appeared that 27 new members have
been elected since the last anniversary. Very valuable
parcels of British and foreign plants had been received,
and would shortly be distributed to the members. The
report was unanimously adopted ; after which, a ballot
took place for the council for the ensuing year, when the
president was re-elected, and nominated J. Miers, Esq.,
F.R.S., and E. Doubleday, Esq., F.L.S., vice-presidents.
Portraits of the President and Mr. Hewitt Watson
(painted by Mrs. Carpenter), subscribed for by the mem-
bers, were presented. The meeting was very fully at-
tended.

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