The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-27 00:00:00

i 4

T SUN, LONDO N 1; TUESDAY NR G, AUGUST 27, 1861.

LA TV INTELLIGENCE.—(This' .Day.)

THE HARVEST.

(Before Mr. Commissioner Goulburn.)

This bankrupt was described as of Lincoln's-inn-fields,
bookseller, &c., and this was a certificate meeting.
The accounts by Messrs. Hart Brothers and Hayles shows
debtor to creditor £2,117; to ditto holding security £8,557.
Creditor by good debts £658 ; property £9Bl. Debts in the
hands of creditors, £917.
There was no opposition.

Mr. C. E. Lewis (Harrison and Lewis) for the bank-
rupt, said that he (banlwupt) had been in business for 36
years, and although it w,.s true that there was a deficiency
for some time, he had continued business with the sanction
of creditors to the extent of £B,OOO. A great cause of the
failure was the trade unions and combinations, whereby
the expenses had been increased 25 per cent.
His Honour said that these combinations were highly
injurious, but the bankrupt ought not to have gone on so
long.

Mr. Lewis said that no creditor complained.
His Honour said that, ender the circumstances, he would
grant a certificate of the second class.

POLICE I.II(TELLIGENCE.—( This Day.)

MARLBOROUGH-STRE ET.

MURDEROUS ASSAULT ON A WOMAN.—Michael Denny,
a boy living at 66, King-street, was charged before Mr.
Mansfield with being concerned, with a woman not in
custody, in assaulting a female named Honorah Harty.
A certificate was handed to the magistrate as follows :
"Middlesex Hospital, Aug. 26.
" This is to certify that Honorah Harty has received a
scalp wound. " W. WILKS, House Surgeon."
Prosecutrix said she lived in Archer-street, and was
having a few words with prisoner's mother, when he came
up and kicked her in the back severely.
Mr. Mansfield—Why did he do it ?

Prosecutrix—From animosity and to help his mother.
His mother then came up and struck me a severe blow on
the head with a horse shoe, cutting my head very badly
and smothering me in blood. (The prosecutrix had her
head bound up, and her dress was bespattered with blood.)
Mr. Mansfield—The best way will be to have a remand
till Monday next to see how the woman gets on, and I will
grant a warrant for the apprehension of the woman free of
charge.
George Kelly, 71, Castle-street, wheelwright, was charged
with assaulting Allcock, 114 E, and fined £5 or a month,
and Anne Jones was fined 10s. or seven days for assaulting
Richard Cook, 96 E.

During the past fortnight the harvest has been
rapidly proceeding throughout the country, the
weatlier having for some days been all that could
be desired for the ingathering of the crop. Very
great diversity of opinion is expressed by agricul-
tural authorities as to the quality of the wheat
crop., There can, however, be little doubt that the
extraordinary severity of the frosts last winter,
with the heavy rains which fell both last autumn
and in the spring, have in some districts greatly
injured the wheat. Both quantity and quality will,
in clay districts especially, be defective, while in
other parts of the country the quality will be ex-
cellent, though, with few exceptions, the crop will
by no means be a heavy one.
Under these circumstances denoting the remark-
able variability of this year's crop, it is premature
to speculate on the probable average of the yield.
The most sanguine will scarcely predict more than
an average. We incline to think that it will be
below the average.
Of the destructive progress of the potato disease
both in this country and in Ireland, there can be no
doubt. The potato crop is very bad in nearly every
part of the kingdom.
Trade meanwhile is in a depressed and languish-
ing condition. In Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds,
Birmingham, and all the great hives of industry,
our commercial prospects are far from satisfactory.
Both the failure of the potato crop and the de-
pression of trade necessitate increased consumption
of wheat. The working millions eat more bread be-
cause they have fewer potatoes, and also because
having lower wages or less employment they are
obliged to buy less animal food.
Under this state of things, our contemporary, the
Times, inserts a suggestive paragraph on " the im-
portance of a good harvest" on one day, and writes
a smart article on the same subject on the day fol-
lowing. We beg leave to say a few words on the
paragraph and the article. We give the former,
and assume its correctness :
" THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD HARVEST.
" The cost of the imports of grain of all kinds,
as well as flour for the last seven years, were in the
year 1854, £21,760,283; 1855, £17,508,700;
1856, £23,039,422 ; 1857, £19,380,567 ; 1858,
£20,152,641 ; 1859, £18,042,063, making a total in
six years of £119,833,676, and an annual average
of £19,980,613 paid for foreign grain and flour,
while in the year 1860 the cost amounted to the
enormous sum of £31,671,918, mainly owing to the
bad harvest in England ; but these figures do not
represent by any means the full extent to which we
are still subjected by the harvest of 1860. They
only show what a large sum of money we have paid ;
but the payments in that year were not near so
heavy as they have been since. The official infor-
mation brought down to the end of April makes the
value of the grain and flour imported in the first
four months of 1859 £4,384,045 ; 1860, £3,913,001 ;
and 1861, £12,435,435, by which it will be seen
that we have been paying for the first four months
of the current year at the rate of £37,306,305 per
annum or £8,522,434 more for breadstuffs than in
the same period of 1860."
Now let it first be observed that we consider a
good harvest a great blessing. We plough and sow
and reap hoping for a harvest. The more abun-
dant the harvest, the more productive is our labour.
Every man, high or low, prefers having good bread
rather than bad ; good and cheap bread, rather than
bad and dear bread. But when the importance of
a good harvest to England is estimated in a financial
way, and we are told the' we are subjected, in 1860,
to the payment of theenormous sum of £31,671,918,
mainly owing to the bad harvest in England, it is
probable that many readers of this statement mag-
nify the evil of this state of things, and conclude
that the country must necessarily suffer from the
expenditure of this " enormous sum " for food.
Enormous as this sum appears, let it be remembered
that it is only one pound a head ; and let it
be also remembered that the income tax, on
merely the higher and middle classes of this
country, produces a million sterling for every
penny imposed as a tax. But taking one
year with another, a great country in a healthy
condition of trade, can never suffer much by hav-
ing to pay something extra for the food which its
people need. How do we buy food ? Let it be sup-
posed that we pay the total amount in gold and
silver. What then ? We barter somethinc, which
we do not want for sometling else which. we do
want. "It is said," observes M. Bastiat, in his
Sophismes Economiques, " if the foreigner inun •
dates us with his produce, he will carry away all
our money. But what does that signify ? Man is
not nourished by money. He does not clothe him-
self with gold. He does not warm himself with
silver. What does it signify whether there be more
or less money in the country, if there be more bread
in the safe, more meat in the larder, more linen in
the press, and more fuel in the cellar ?"
But we do not produce gold and silver in Eng-
land. We buy gold and silver money with our
goods. If we have more gold to give for foreign
corn, we must give more goods for the gold which
we give for the corn. We exchange, therefore, our
superabundance of goods for the requisite supply
of food.

But, if we are to believe the slashing, dashing
writer in the Tines, all the great events of the
world depend upon a good or bad crop of wheat.
"What," says he of the thunderer, " does the peace
of the world depend on at this moment ?" Not, says
he, upon America nor France, nor Mr. Lincoln, nor
the Pope, nor the Emperor of Austria ; " it depends
wholely and solely, according to human calculation
upon a few days more sunshine."
" Yesterday was worth at least two millions to
England alone. The day before yesterday was worth
quite as much. Every ray that embrowns our rust-
ling fields, every zephyr that ventilates the mass of
tali stalks, has its money value. It is a question to
us of at least thirty millions. That is, however, the
smallest matter involved in it. A bad harvest, such
as is still quite possible, although we are all hoping
that we have passed the danger, coming upon the
heels of the failure of last year, would mean famine
prices, restricted employment, suffering among the
masses, discontent, disaffection, agitation. It is not
only that we should have thirty millions more to
pay, but that we should also have at least thirty
millions less wherewith to pay them. Not vainly
did the old apophthegm link peace and plenty to-
gether, although it falaciously transposed the two
words, and accepted as the effect what is more cer-
tainly the cause. In this country at least plenty
has never failed to produce contentment, and con-
tentment has never failed to produce peace. The
trade of the agitator has never yet thriven in Eng-
land while wages were good and food cheap.
Thanks to our open ports and our extraordinary
commercial prosperity, we have tided over one bad
harvest, and have scarcely felt it. India and
China have kept our looms working, and America
and Russia have kept out famine. Let us pray
that we may not be put to the experiment of
a second year of trial. But we are not alone.
We might have disagreements among ourselves,
but should hardly hope to find relief by
rushing unprovoked into foreign war. Such,
however, is not the habit of all nations. France
depends upon her harvest quite as much—perhaps
even more, than we do. That the harvest of 1861
in France will be rather deficient seems to be
already ascertained ; but to gather in even the
deficient harvest, and to avoid a catastrophe our
accounts require ten, days of fine weather. Talk of
the Sun of Austerlitz ; the fortunes of France hang
much more immediately upon the sunshine of the
next few days of August. Floods in France just
now mean war in Europe end revolutionary devas-
f tation everywhere. Let others examine micro-
scopically the warp and woof of the policy of
Princes, and balance the resources of nations; just
at this moment we would trust more in a weather-
cock and a barometer than in all the promises of
man.
A good harvest in Europe will be not only a
pledge of peace here, but will give a hope of peace
to America. There are evident signs that the
State resources at this moment are not abundant
on either side. " Some thirty millions of English
gold might seasonably light up the fires anew, and
give an impetus to the flagging resentments of the
Northern States, as well as to the commerce of the
Atlantic cities. Sunshine—a few days of this
baking sunshine—will relieve us from the necessity
of paying this tribute, and will enable us to eat
our own bread and keep our own money." "If
France should be only a little short, and if
England should have an average crop, there will
be good chance of peace in Europe for the twelve-
months yet to come. Occupied time and full
bellies will keep the world from quarreling. But the
Heavens—even the material Heavens—have more
to do with it than the passions or the machinations
of men. There is more war in a day's rain than in
an Emperor's most ambitious project, and more
peace in a morning's sunshine than even in a
treaty of commerce."
All this is readable, amusing nonsense. A rich
commercial nation, under an equitable financial
system, would be just as well able to buy food for
its people when a bad harvest occurs, as the editor
of the Times is to pay his baker's bill when bread
is dear. But there is truth in what the Times says,
though the writer " meaneth not so." He affirms
that " a bad harvest, coming upon the heels of the
failure of last year, would mean famine prices, re-
stricted employment, suffering among the masses,
discontent, disaffection, agitation." Let " sunshine"
enable us " to eat our own bread and keep our own
money," and all will be right.
Now, why cannot England buy bread for its
people without inconvenience? This is the reason
why. If wheat comes into the country. it may
answer the purpose of the foreigner to take gold,