The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-10-01 00:00:00

THE CORN LAWS.

Extract from Sir James Graham's Speech at Me Meeting of
the Netherlby Agricultural Association on the 17th ult.

We have met together under various circumstances, and
on many trying occasions. Sometimes you have partaken
of my exultation on success, and on other occasions you
have met me to console me under defeat ; but whether we
have met under circumstances of prosperity or adversity,
this common tie has always united us—your prosperity is
my prosperity, and your adversity is my adversity. At the
present moment there is a most abundant crop upon the
ground, but there is a great difficulty in securing it. 1 do
not wish to moralize, but I should not be doing justice to
my own feelings if I failed to draw yonr attention for a few
moments to the awful circumstance in which we may
possibly be placed. It is alwpys my wish to exclude
politics from this meeting, because I think they are the
bane of associations of this nature, and I trust that the
tone of the remarks I am about to offer will not subject me
to the charge of infringing the, rule, which I profess a desire
to have observed, I must declare, that I have heard with
the deepest regret sentiments of extreme violence uttered
lately in many parts of the country. A declaration was
made of an intention to hold what was called a " sacred
month," during which *all labour was to be suspended.
The time chosen for the execution of this project was the
commencement of harvest, for the avowed purpose of de-
feating the bounty of Providence. Let me, my friends, call
your attention to this remarkable circumstance—never,
perhaps, was there a year of greater promise than the pre-
sent. I have traveitea through tne greater part of England
and the South of Scotland, and never did I see more
abundant crops on the ground. The declaration against
working has been. rescinded ; the cultivator of the
soil no longer fears that his crops will spoil for want of
reapers—the foolish and wicked decree of man has prevailed
not. But mark the stern decree of Providence. The crops
are plenteous—the sickle is prepared, and the reapers are
willing to work, but the elements prevent them from gather-
ing in the ripened harvest. This is a striking, an awful
warning! I hope that irreparable injury is not yet done to
the crops. I hope that the hand which can destroy as well
as give increase may yet be stayed, but I have felt it my
duty to avail myself of this opportunity of directing your
attention to considerations which have weighed heavily
with me. I look on the present state of the harvest as a
striking warning which I hope will not be thrown away
upon the people of the country. (Hear, hear.) There is
another circumstance connected with this topic which I can-
not altogether overlook. It is frequently urged that the
maintenance of our domestic agriculture is a landlord's and
not a tenant's question. I have always endeavoured, in the
face of those who are the most powerful advocates of that
opinion, to combat it. (Cheers.) It is a mistake to suppose
that a tenant would take land with the intention of being a
permanent occupier of it without expending, on the faith of
his confidence in the landlord, a large amount of private
capital. It is vain to say that ft farmers might withdraw
their capital from the land and ')..0.k it in other kinds of
business. The capital sunk in ..griculture cannot be with-
drawn from it,- the more particularly at a moment when the
very existence of-domestic agriculture was threatened. What
farmer would lay out a capital on his farm if he believed his
landlord would eject him from it at the end of two or three
years ? And in like manner who would be found to give a
fair equivalent for the capital invested in land if the legislature
should pass an act which would diminish the value of the
land's produce one-half ? (Hear, hear.) If by a rash and
sudden act of the legislature all protection should be with-
drawn from the cultivators of the soil, and this great com-
munity rendered dependent on a supply of foreign grain,
certain ruin would await the great body of landlords, but their
ruin would be insignificant in point of numbers and wealth
compared with that which would fall upon the mass of the
occupiers of the soil, and not upon them alone, but upon the
agricultural labourers. (Loud cheers.) You all know by
practical experience how small a proportion rent bears to the
outgoings necessary in the cultivation of land. (Hear, hear.)
The larger proportion of these outgoings is expended in labour.
Think what would become of those immediately dependent
on the cultivators of the soil, if by a rash and sudden altera-
tion of the law you should be compelled to cease employing
them. A convulsion of the whole social system wonld ensue
if an immense number of agricultural labourers should be
thrown into the market for manufacturing labour, thereby
reducing the wages of those workmen now exclusively occu-
pied in that description of labour. Those who desired to try
the experiment of depending upon a supply of foreign grain,
have, to a certain extent, had their wish gratified. Last year
there had been a great demand for foreign grain owing to the
deficiency of home produce. The people of this country have,
by immense exertions, been able to import, in the course of
the last year, a larger quantity of foreign corn than has ever
been imported in any previous year. I fear that in the pre-
sent year a deficiency of the home produce will occur and
again occasion a great demani for foreign corn. Under
these circumstances, therefore, those who like the experi-
ment to which I have just alluded will have seen it tried
upon a large scale. (Hear, hear.) I fear that it will be
found to be by no means consistent with national prosperity.
But it may be said this it a sudden demand, and that a differ-
ent effect would follow if the demand were constant and per-
petual. We cannot command a 'erica of seasons of abun-
dance in this country. We know by fatal experience that we
have constantly two or three seasons together of an adverse
character. Suppose that, foreign corn being admitted, a
much smaller quantity was grown in this country (as would
certainly be the case), and that a succession -of bad seasons
sliould render us wholly, dependent on, foreign, supply, what
would be the situation of our immensepopulabon of twentyp
four millions crowded into the space of two narrow islands,
and looking for the supply of their daily bread, not only to
Europe, but to all parts of the world ? (Hear, hear.) I be-
lieve that the whole civiliied world would be .inadequate to
meet the extraordinary demand which would arise under such
circumstances, and that history could afford, no parallel to
the scene of distress—to the strife of angry passions, which
would be called into play when twenty-four millions of people,
confined within our narrow limits, should be reduced to the
extremity of want and actual famine. (Cheers.) My strong
impression, therefore, is, that to domestic agriculture we
must look for security against horrors which I cannot depict,
but which must occur to every one as the necessary result of
a real famine being experienced in these islands. Such being
my opinions, I have always, since I entered into public life,
both from inclination and duty, done my utmost to favour
domestic agriculture in every possible manner, and to defend
it from all assaults. (Loud cheers.) These are my general
opinions, and I have been aided by you in giving practical
effects to them. I have had other objects of ambition which
at times call me far away from you ; but to my native estate
—to. my own home—l always return with the most heartfelt
My. My chief pleasure is to improve the estate I have in-
herited, and in doing ao I am certainly materially assisted by
the most industrious, the most true-spirited, and most honest
body of cultivators of the soil it has ever been my happi-
ness to be acquainted with.

PORT LINCOLN.—The settlement of this important har-
bour proceeds with great rapidity. The Abeona sailed on
Monday with a large party of gentlemen interested in the en-
terprise. The Porter and the Dorset follow during the sours('
of next week, both fully loaded, by Mr. Porter and Mr. C.
Smith. Dr. Imlay has contracted to land stock there at the
same rate as at Glenelg ; and, not least in importance, a news-
paper—The Port Lincoln Herald, is to be published on Wed-
nesday week. Vigour of this description is not to be stifled
by any set of monopolists ; and we are glad to say that apli-
cation has been already made through an influential quarter
for the establishment of a branch bank of one of the Van
Dieman's Land Companies.—South Australian Gazette.
SWAN RIVER FLEAS.—The Australian fleas are half as
large as a barleycorn ; and in the Swan River Region, the
plan of getting rid of these pests is to carry the bed and
bedding and spread them near an ant-hill, the denizens of
which will seize the sleeping fleas and. carry them off.—.Re-
witting Travels in South Australia.

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