The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-19 00:00:00

other reason is this, that here was a plan of drainage
which was regarded as novel, yet had been employed
and established for half a century, at no great distance
from London ; and this is by no means a singular
proof how little the farmers in one part of England
knew, untillately, what the others were doing."l
This statement is of far less importance to
prove the value of under-draining, and the
length of time it has been practised, than to
prove the worthlessness of the landowners, and
the inestimable advantage even to them of com-
petition. Would any man believe, after the
century, nearly, of talk and writing we have
had about agricultural improvement and en-
couragement of agriculture, after the patronage
of GEORGE 111., the establishment of scores of
Agricultural Associations and Royal Agricul-:
tural Societies, after all the labours of the late
Earl of LEICESTER and several other friends of
agriculture—would any man believe, if it were
stated in The Sun on our authority, or stated
on any less exalted authority than an agricul-
tural M.P., that the farmers in one part of Eng-
land knew little or nothing, until lately, of what
the farmers in other parts knew, and were doing ?
Yet such is the f.,..ct ; and it is our belief that
cept in the immediate neighbourhood of
arket towns, and on a few estates, the
i4ners of which, like Lord SPENCER, are
themselves practical farmers, the bulk of the
tenants-at-will throughout England, know very
little indeed now of the practices in any district
but that in which they reside. But waiving our
belief, and taking the fact on the undisputed
authority of an agricultural M.P., is it possible
to bring a stronger proof of the uselessness of
landlords to agriculture, and of the utter worth-
lessness of all their schemes and laws for
encouraging and improving it, than this avowed
ignorance of the farmers of practices the utility
of which has been demonstrated for years ? For
what purpose do the landowners meet in their
clubs? Why do they congregate at one season
of the year in the metropolis, and at another dis-
perse over every part of the empire, if they
diffuse no useful information ? Wherefore.
are their peculiar sports cherished and pro-
tected at such an expense of humanity and pub-
lic happiness, if they cannot and do not convey
the knowledge, the value of which is proved in
one district, to another where it is not possessed,
and where the stationary farmer, toiling day
after day for a living, has scarcely time to read,
and cannot quit his farm to gather information ?
We always thought the great and the only use
of the landlords to agriculture was, that they
diffused the knowledge ofimprovements amongst
their tenantry. It now appears that they do no
such thing, and the statements of the self-suffi-
cient Mr. PUSEY, which he makes as a slur on
the tenantry, is a severer condemnation of the
landlords then any member of the Anti-Corn-
law League ever pronounced.
Let the reader mark the confession of gross
ignorance, not in the toiling tenants-at-will, but
in leisure landlords, which Mr. PUSEY avows.
" It is only," he says, " seven years since wE,''
the landlords, " heard in England" of Mr.
SMITH of Deanston's practices, and they
do not all know yet of the practices in
Suffolk, Essex, and Kent. Not the te-
nantry only, therefore, the landowners of one
part of England were ignorant, until lately, of
what was done in another part, and in Scotland.
Now Mr. PUSEY, who makes this extraordinary
confession, is a kind of literary man, the brother
of the " Seraphic Doctor," and one of the best
instructed and not the least liberal of his class.
He is spoken of by the Morning Chronicle as an
" agriculturist of practical knowledge and scien-
tific acquirements." If such were Hrs dense
ignorance only seven years ago of what so in-
timately concerns his own business, what must
be the still denser ignorance of the
great mass of country gentlemen ? If
they know so little of agriculture, how
can we give them credit for any knowledge
of the influence which their own laws exercise
over it? Suppose the Manchester manufacturers
were to ask Parliament for a high protecting
duty on cotton cloth, because they were under-
sold, and it should be proved, not merely that
they did not use superior machinery which
was in use at Glasgow, or at Liege, but that they
actually did not know of its being used, would
they not be hooted at as most ignorant, lazy
blockheads, and sent to improve their own pro-
cesses, instead of laying a tax on the community,
to enable them to keep the cottons of Glasgow or
Liege out of the Manchester market ? The case
of the landlords on Mr. PUSEY'S statement is
parallel to this, except that these most ignorant
and useless men, having had the political power
of the State in their hands, have passed such a
law as we have supposed the Manchester men
to demand, and to have been refused. The land-
lords have actually compelled the community to
give them a large price for their produce, that
they, according to Mr. PUSEY'S statement, igno-
rant and lazy blockheads, might doze on in their
old slovenly and unimproved methods.
All at once, however, these gentlemen have
started on their feet, and after rubbing their
eyes they resolve on exerting themselves. From
all quarters we hear of improvements in agricul-
ture; we find the landlord sedulous in spreading
abroad information, in teaching the doctrine
that there is no fear, and in inviting the tenantry
to invest more capital in the soil. What has so
suddenly put them on their metal ? What has
all at once spread the knowledge of Mr. SMITH'S
practices to every agricultural hamlet of the
country ? A little, and only a little healthy
competition, and the tear of competition. It is
now about five years since a shock to trade and
a deficient harvest began to direct public
attention to the Corn-laws. The landlords be-
came alarmed for their monopoly. Successive
bad harvests and a declining trade made, every
year, the attack on their stronghold more
implilg. To defend it, they were bound to in-
t Irl
e the cWrl Sal si olesslubplep.ly lc\
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afterrf o uphold
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dared against it ; and no sooner was a breach
made than the supine a. ad. ignorant landlords
discovered that their own acres were only half
cultivated, e
and might be made, by
labour, to produce twice as much: as
That is the beneficial effect, not of Corn-laws,
but of the probability that they maybe done away.
The apprehension of competition, and some little
competition, have done more within the two
last years to diffuse agricultural knowledge
amongst farmers and landlords than was done in

all the previous years that elapsed subsequen.

to 1815.

Now if we see on the one hand such
gross and avowed ignorance, and such un-

couth practices nourished by the protective

system, and see on the other such a won,

derful increase of knowledge by a little
competition, have we not good reason to expect
that, by exposing our agriculturists to the effects

of a complete free trade in food, we shall very
soon bring them all to be as thoroughly acquainted
with the best system of agriculture known in
the world, as the men of Manchester are ac-

quainted with the best known system of spinning?
We have no doubt that such would be the case,
and no doubt that it is only requisite to expoi.e
our agriculture to free and healthy competition,
to place it abreast of our manufactures, and in
advance of the agriculture of every part of the
world. We have no doubt, as the produce of
agriculture depends far more on skill, than on
any supposed fertility of the soil, that only com-
petition is necessary to make our agriculturists
more skilful than those of other countries, and
Produce corn, as our manufacturers produce
cotum cloth, cheaper than any other persons.
In all that concerns the manufacture of agricul-
tural instruments and facility of conveyance, two
great portions of the price of agricultural pro-
duce to the consumer, the growth of cora is al-
ready effected at a much less cost in England
than abroad.
There is good reason, there-
fore, to conclude that the other portions
of the price of agricultural produce might
be reduced in like manlier were the corn
trade only free. To obtain such inestimable
results, so teeming with happiness to all classes,
areoflearnidle
they are most bound to know, and whose arro...