The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-22 00:00:00

A PROMISING HARVEST.

It was always foretold that Railways would do
a good deal for us, but they are just now found
to perform a function which nobody ever thought
of assigning to them. They indicate the general
prosperity of the country with greater accuracy
than even the Funds themselves. The dividends
which they declare are influenced by every incident
affect ing the condition of the people, and the an-
nouncements of the last few days may have sufficed
to inform us that all the consequences of a bad har-
vest or a severe Ns inter are hardly appreciated till the
directors of the various companies have made their
statements some six months afterwards. Every-
body is aware that the crops of 1860 were sadly
deficient; and that a very large proportion of the
corn which should have been forthcoming from
our own fields had to be purchased in foreign mar-
kets for the consumption of the year. Perhaps
thirty millions of money went out of the country in
this way, and it was fortunate that we had oppor-
tunities of making such a bargain. These enormous
purchases of wheat had the one great effect of pro-
viding us with food. Thanks to free trade, we
staved off famine. Bread was dear, but it never
reached starvation prices, and, as work was pretty
brisk and -other things were comfortable, we got
through a perilous time with comparatively little
suffering. Still, the loss of a harvest was a heavy
loss. It must needs have been felt in some quarter
or other, and the railway reports enable us to trace
its incidence with wonderful distinctness.

We are a very rich people, and we can afford to
do many expensive things, but even we cannot send
£30,000,000 away without feeling the drain. All
that money, which, if the harvest had been a good
one, would simply have changed hands at home, was
carried off to enrich the farmers of America or of
Russia. It went out of the country, and the coun-
try could not but be the poorer. It is true we got
bread in return, and that the investment was a good
one ; but there still remained the fact that, owing
to the failure of our own crops, all this gold had to
be sent abroad. The result was a corresponding de-
ficiency at home. So much money having been spent
in replacing a lest store of corn, there was less to be
spent on other purposes. All classes felt the pinch.
Consumers retrenched their demands and producers
their supplies. There was not, indeed, any stagna-
tion, but there was depression. Nobody had quite so
much to spare as usual, and railway companies soon
found this out. They lost, in the first place, the
carriage of corn. The grain traffic which should
have taken place across the country was carried on
across the Atlantic, and the Great Northern line
especially, which looks to be laden with the rich
produce of Lincolnshire, found a large portion of its
goods traffic swept away at once. Then followed
what, in the language of the reports, is termed the
" depressed state of trade"—a phrase which com-
prehends all the reductions entailed by a reduction
of working capital. There was less doing in the
markets of the country, less travelling, less trans-
port, and consequently smaller receipts for railways.
Even the pleasure traffic was materially deranged,
though more, perhaps, by cheerless weather than by
shortness of funds ; for, though trade was dull,
there was nothing like distress.

It may seem at first sight as if railway companies
were the chief sufferers on such occasions, but that
is not exactly the case. They experienced, indeed,
special losses from the severity of the winter, which
damaged their rolling stocks and seriously injured,
their roadways, but in other respects they only
suffered because people suffered generally.. The
effects of the bad harvest only reached them through
the various classes of the population, and the results
become visible in their case only because they alone
publish their accounts. The farmer who wanted,
no trucks for his corn, the tradesman who had no
goods to send off, and the passengers who travelled
less frequently than usual, had all felt the screw
before it touched the railways; but it is by railway
returns that the facts become registered. Others
lost as well as the railways, but they are obliged to
make their losses known. The dividend comes out a
fraction under the mark, and the directors must ex-
plain the fall. So they turn to their books, and tell
us in half-a-dozen words that their general custom
fell off because the public, owing to extraordinary ex-
penditure abroad, had less money to spend at home.
We do not suppose that the general passenger
asiasgricultural statisticsi:eenWbiad,
traffic on the various lines was so much affected
by the depression of trade as by the unusual cha-
racter of the weather. The summer and autumn
of last year were, to say the least, so unattractive
that people had fewer. temptations than usual to
move from. home, while, as the winter advanced,,
what with the
.intensity of the cold, the probability
of long delays on lines blocked up with snow, and
the danger alleged to attend the unnatural brittle-
ness of ironwork under the action of frost, it may be
safely assumed. that for some weeks together few-
people. took railway tickets except from necessity,
and. it was a hard time, therefore, for the Com-
panics, as their receipts fell off and their expenses.
increased. The wonder is that the effects were not
more serious than they have proved to be, but Rail-
ways have a good many chances, and one may turn
out favourably when another fails. It is instruc-
tive to remark how the source of profit varies on
different lines and at different periods. Some-
times it is the goods traffic that pays—perhaps
coals, perhaps cattle. Sometimes passengers bring
.
the best remuneration, and, perhaps, rather third-
class passengers than first-class. The Chairman of
the Great Northern, when called upon to explain
why the passenger traffic of the Midland appeared_.
to enjoy a certain advantage, replied that the Ma-•
land took a large proportion of third-class. fares.
It will be seen from all these conclusions how very
badness of the harvest. Of course, the same effects
naff.oewc.tednbayilwthaey
reports
odrnt es Bela 0
mo :
were produced always, but they. were not always
When
chairman after chairman tells his audience that re-
ceiptsand that trade was bad because the corn crop was:
have dwindled because trade has
deficient, we see at once that there has been a really
bad season, and how
.a bad season reacts on every
description of enterprise. The survey, too, may well
increase our
.thankfulness at the prospect before us,.
ptwrraii
sdc
eee laytbhlteel lesesosceconluecnaert country
The harvest is far, indeed, from being finisked,
and the weather in some parts of the country is
rather unsettled, but we have had, upon the whole,
a splendid fortnight, and already a vast hrfJadth of
land has been cleared of a yield inew,nparably
superior to that of 1860. In some cranties pro-
bably at least half the crop hs:4s been housed, and
in admirable condition. Instead of sending thirty
millions to America, we shall keep a good deal of
the money at home, to fertilise every field of enter-
prise and stimulate every braneh of commerce.
Then the railway barometer will tell another story,
and the half-yearly reports, at the same time that
they may gratify proprietors with a better divi-
dend, will record the improvement in the general
condition of the people,—Tories.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1861.

The satirists and the caricaturists have often
made great fun of that fruitful theme of ridicule
familiarly known amongst those humourists of pen
and pencil as—Family Jars. But beyond them all,
as a perpetual provocative to merriment, is assuredly
that Family J. A. R. of England—JOHN ARTHUR
ROEBUCK, M.P. for Sheffield. We don't know
what we should ever do without him. Whenever,
politically, the time is beginning to hang heavily—
he is always at hand to rouse the country from its
lethargy and dullness. Scarcely has Parliament
been prorogued when the good Watch-Dog
Tear'em (as Mr. ROEBUCK long ago dubbed himself)
is " at it" once more, tugging at his chain, bouncing
out of his kennel, and barking vociferously. The
capitol of ancient Rome was saved by Geese. Why
should England disdain to be warned from danger
by Tear'em P Not that the member for Sheffield is
what you would call, according to the vulgar accep-
tation of the phrase—an Alarmist. Only—the hon.
gentleman can contrive to see as far into a mill-
stone as most people ! And—there—through that
millstone now hanging about the neck of JOHN
BULB in the shape of an annual expenditure of more
than £7o,ooo,ooo—does not that very incarnation
of Beware behold, as clearly as if he were
looking through glass instead of granite, the
inevitable peril fast coming towards us ? Verb.
sap., says the proverb. And so, that single fact of
our expenditure is quite enough in its way for Mr.
ROEBUCK. He can deduce everything from it. It
is his magic crystal through which he beholds the
future of England. Given those £70,000,000, and
the member for Sheffield, if he cared to do it,
might publish a prophetic almanack that would
eclipse ZADKIEL'S yearly masterpiece. Yet, after
all, extravagant though the exaggerated phrases of
Mr. ROEBUCK unquestionably are in them-
selves, whenever he sets himself to work
in earnest to descant upon our impending troubles
—there is a wonderful deal of truth in what he says
M bottom, even in spite of the extravagance of the
way in which he says it. His intensity of manner
at these times reads, it must be allowed, very much
like joking. Yet, accepting it even in that light,
we don't know where we could look for a more apt
illustration of the accuracy of the old adage about
many a true word being spoken in jest. Nothing
could well be happier in its Way than Mr.ROEBUCK'S
remark yesterday when addressing his constituents
at Sheffield, to the effect that —e The dragon's
teeth had been sown ; and the Volunteers had
started up !" For literally it is by reason of the
bitter suspicions scattered amongst us by the
French EMPEROR'S Government, that England has
ithin less than two years found herself suddenly
endowed with a National Guard of from 100,000 to
200,000 skilled and disciplined Riflemen.

People talk about the cordiality of the Anglo-
French Alliance. They babble about the present
Sovereign of France having maintained peace
with this country ever since he gained su-
preme power over our neighbours. They
point to the reciprocation of hospitalities between
VICTORIA and NAPOLEON, now at Windsor Castle,
now at the Tuileries. They din into our ears that
his Imperial Majesty is bent upon copying our
institutions—that, in point of fact, his one aim
and ambition is to assimilate the character of his
great military despotism with that of our free con-
stitutional Government. Lord BROL'G!IAM talked
the other day, in the loftiest language of hyperbole,
about the perfect liberty of discussion enjoyed
by the French Chambers under his (Lord
13RouGuam's) " excellent Friend and Sovereign,
the present Emperor NAPOLEON." Mr. COBDEN
not only talked ibe other day, but talks always,
about the incalculable benefits secured, not only to
France but
to •
England as well, by the amazing
enlightenment
of the mind of this paragon of an
Imperial neighbour. Mr. BRIGHT--who, by the
way, about a year
ago, was personally introduced
by Mr. COBDEN to the French EMPEROR in the
Palace of the Tuileries, and
who has therefore en-
,, la-
I oyed the opportunity of fallingdircctlyunderthe
mour of this crovi'ned MacinAvELLl—Mr. BRIGHTt
Haver tires in expatiating
1111°11 the pacific wisdom
of that arbitrar of the destinies of Christendom
If we were to bolieve Mr. BRlGnT—the French
I,',WPEROR must be the very alter ego of Bottom in
"
" Midsnmmer Night's Dream" and can roar
ty, Nay—could pc (3 but
you like any suckirg dove.
took at things an 111" r, 13EIGHT looks at them..