The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-12-20 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

ANTI-CORN-LAW LOGIC.
(From the Farmers' Journal)
The Morning Chronicle
.bas been exceedingly critical
on the arguments employed on the subject of the Corn
Laws by several of the speakers at the meeting of the
Central Agricultural Society. Here is a specimen of
the reasoning, in which our contemporary delights :
"But then agriculture would ,be destroyed by the im-
portation of corn. Why? The importation of corn supposes
the exportation of manufactures to pay for what is imported.
Agriculture must always be flourishing where corn is im-
ported, because the very fact of the importation proves the
existence of successful manufactures, creating so great a de-
mand for food in. the home market as to make the price equal
to the price in other countries, with the addition of freight
and the charges on importation. In the importing country
the price of the corn must always be high.
" What the agriculturists have .to dread is not the im-
portation of foreign corn—for that proves a demand beyond
the nation's supply—but the decay of our manufactures, and
the diminished ability of the population to purchase food."
What a sad confusion of thought have we here !
" Agriculture must always be flourishing where corn is
imported, because the very fact of the importation proves
the existence of successful manufactures." Might it
not, with equal ease and truth, be alleged, that " ma-
niffactures must always be flourishing where manufac-
tures are imported, because the very fact of the impor-
tation proves the existence of successful agriculture" ?
But the " agriculturists," we are assured, have no
reason to dread the importation of foreign corn—" for
that proves a demand above the nation's supply—but
the decay of our manufactures and the diminished.
ability of the population to purchase food."
The importation of foreign corn by no means proves
a "demand beyond the nation's supply,"—but only,
even in tha worst. years, that the average price of wheat
in this country is too low to permit the full develope-
ment of the productive powers of the soil. The de-
cay of manufactures is, of course, an object of just ap-
prehension to agricidturists ; but, then, by " manufac-
tures," must be understood manufactures prepared for
our home trade, for our colonial trade, and for those
various departinents .where the. action of industry is
healthy and Well-remuneratetL The manufacturing in-
dustry that is engaged in our modern foreign trade is,
as we have often proved, most injurious in its action
upon all the best interests of the country. The effect
of our foreign trade has.been for the last twenty years,
regularly, and incessantly, to lessen wages in all de-
partments, to lower profits, to annihilate property. and
accumulations in their various forms ! In so far as the
Corn Laws tend to check foreign trade conducted on
free-trade principles, the Corn Laws confer not the
least of their benefits on all the industrious orders of
society !
The peculiar burdens under which English agricul-
ture labours were naturally and forcibly dwelt upon by
the various speakers at the meeting of the Central
Agricultural Society. On this topic a ministerial con-
temporary has observed :
" Amongst other argumentative make-weights, allusion
has been made to the peculiar pressure on the land of the
land-tax, the malt-tax, and the poor-laws and -county-rates.
It is distinctly assumed that these items enter into the price
of corn. The argument is, that they .prevent its being so
cheaply grown as in other countries. But without inquiring
how far they do or do not enter into the price of corn, it is
plain, on either supposition, that the corn-law advocates are
caught in their own web. If they do not affect the cost, and
'hereby the
_price, then the burden on land does not exist ;

and if they cli) enhance the price, then the burden is borne
by the consumer."

The propositions which we have quoted do not com-
prehend the whole case. The answer to the imaginary
dilemma may, therefore, be easily supplied.
The land-tax, the county-rate, the highway-rate, the
poor-rate do, undoubtedly, " affect the cost, and, there-
fore, the price" of English agricultural produce : but
these taxes do not raise the price sufficiently to place
on the same level the English agriculturist and the
English manufacturer, in their respective characters,es
producers. If the taxes in question-did not enter at
all into the price of English agricultural produce,
then English wheat would not, perhaps, be higher
priced than wheat grown abroad. The difference be-
tween the prices of English and Continental wheat
measures the extent, to which the fiscal imposts speci-
fied, do enter into the price of English grain. But
that difference of price does not, by any means, com-
pensate the English agricultural capitalist for the heavy
taxes to which his capital is subjected. The English
agriculturist is not enabled, by means of the higher
prices in question, to transfer to the consumers of agri-
cultural produce any but a small portion of the bur-
dens which press upon him. "Where, it may be de-
manded, is to be found the proof of our position ?
That proof is supplied by the dfffering rate of profit
upon agricultural and upon moniffacturing capital.—
Upon the aggregate manufacturing capital of England
the net returns are upwards of 30 per cent. Upon the
aggregate farming capital, of England the net returns
are less than 10 per cent. If, however, the agricul-
tural producer in England could transfer the taxes that
affect his capital to the consumers of agricultural pro-
duce, the net returns upon manufacturing and upon
agricultural capital would speedily tend to the same
level.

It is not difficult to point out the influences in vir-
tue of which the profits on agricultural capital are thus
injuriously affected. Those influences proceed from
the mischievous exemption from taxation enjoyed by
manufacturing capital in all its varieties. If manufac-
turing capital were taxed, as agricultural capital is
taxed, then all the burdens which press on English
agricultural producers would be transferred (as most
assuredly they ought to be) to the consumers of Eng-
lish agricultural produce. In consequence, however,
of the exemption from taxation of all capital applied to
manufactures, there is perpetually in operation a fear.:
ful bounty, the effect of which is to divert capital from
the land, and at the same time (through the. agency of
untaxed machinery) to lessen to a terrible extent the
general rate of wages, and by consequence, to lessen
the profitableness of all the markets for agricultural
produce. If all capital, manufacturing and agricultu-
ral, were equally taxed for the benefit of labourers, the
wages of labour would universally rise; and the whole
fiscal burdens bearing so heavily upon productively-
employed capital would ultimately be transferred to
consumers. Through the operation of our unequal tax-
ation, but a small portion of the taxes which press upon
agricultural capital, is really borne by the public. That
small portion, however, raises the price of English agri-
cultural produce above the price of continental produce
of the same kind.

The manufacturing capital of England amounts to
two hundred and four millions, which yields net annual
• returns of fifty-eight millions, or about thirty per cent.
The farming capital of England exceeds seven hundred
and fifty millions, which yields au average net profit of
less than eight per cent. or .about sixty millions. If the
farmers of England were as !mph favoured by our fis-
cal arrangements, as "our exporting manufacturers"
are, the farmers of England would divide annually, in
the form of profit, two hundred millions instead qf sixty.
If, again, the farmers of England, without being un-
justly exempted from taxation, as "our exporting
manufacturers " are, were yet enabled, by an honest
adjustment of our fiscal burdens, to throw upon the
public, all the taxes affecting their capital (and such an
arrangement would be in conformity with the strictest
justice) the net returns upon that capital would be
doubled.

CON.MUNICATION WITH LONDON.—Colonel Conyngham,
R.E., Admiral Sir J. Gordon; Sir F. Smith, R.E., Captain
Beechey, R.N., and Professor Barlow, are appointed by go-
vernment to assemble at Holyhead, on. the 20th instant, for
the purpose of inspecting that harbour, and the line of coast
from thence to Liverpool, for the purpose of ascertaining
what harbour is best fitted for the purpose of facilitating the
communication between London and Dublin.—Dublin Even-
ing Post.

The great physiologist Blumenbach had an animal of the
monkey tribe, whose movements and conduct he carefully
Watched for more than a year together. It came to manage
the wood for the stove with great dexterity, and would put it
on with as much judgment and economy as a cook-maid or a
parsimonious spinster. This animal was very partial to the
tire, like ail other apes, and would,occasionally singe himself,
when he would sally forth and roll round about in the snow
with all the ecstacy of a Russian after taking a warm vapour
bath at 180 degrees of heat. After enjoying this luxury for
a time, he would return to his old quarters by the fire. He
was often at the college, where he used to turn over and
examine the specimens with a gravity and grimace which
was quite irresistible. •He once swallowed a lump of arsenic,
large enough to have done the business of ten Kahnucks ;
but in him it produced only a trifling indisposition, and in a
short while he was quite well again. A work on insects hap-
pened to lie for some time upon the table, and which our phi-
losopher contemplated with solemn studiousness for about
an hour. The illustrations particularly rivetted his attention;
whether they awakened reminiscences of his former haunts,
is unknown ; but when the book came to be examined, it was
discovered that with consummate address he had pinched out
all the beetles of the large plates, and actually eaten them—
it is supposed, mistaking them for real insects in some un-
known state of preservation.