The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-02-21 00:00:00

CORN LAWS

(From a Correspondent of the Morning Herald.)
In my last letter I charged upon the anti-corn law orators
this gross absurdity—that " they assumed their conclusions
in order to prove their principles." If their conclusions
were right it would be less matter, but they assume that
which I totally deny, and which all their opponents deny,
merely for the purpose of deluding their followers. For

.
example—they most unblushingly assume that the corn laws
were enacted merely for the benefit of the landlords. Now
the author of the " Claims of the Landed Interests" dis-
tinctly denies such to be the case, and proves, by an analy-
sis of the respective contributions Made by the commercial,
manufacturing, and agricultural classes, towards the welfare
and prosperity of the community at large, that agricultural
protection wasfor the good of the public, and not for the
benefit of landed proprietors alone. If the anti-corn law
orators deny the truth of this allegation, let them disprove
the arguments of the writer in question; but this has never
been done yet, nor ever will be done in my mind, either by
them or anybody else. Again—the anti-corn-law orators
assert that the corn laws keep prices high, although it is
notorious the prices have been for many years under the
average of the-tinie• the said laws were enacted; whilst
others of their partisans, taunted with this fact, which
cannot be denied, turn round on their Opponents, and say,
if these corn laws don't keep no the price of corn, what
objection can you have to their being 'abolished ? For ;m
answer to this question, I again refer to the writer I have
already alluded to, who satisfactorily proves this paradox,
and shows how a free trade in corn would effectually ruin
the British farmer, although a protecting duty cannot screen
him from the effects of home competition and abundant har-
vests. But this is not all—the same parties assume that if
we take foreign corn free, the continental states will take our
manufactures free, and two of the speakers tit the Manchester
dinner boldly asserted that Dr. Bowring had been charged
with such a declaration.--but when Dr. Bowring gets up what
does he say? Why, he says nothing qf the kind. He does
not say even anything like it, and the matter remains ex-
actly as it was before—a mere assertion of interested parties,
unsupported by any official declarations of the kind whatever,
as far as the public are yet informed upon the subject. Then,
if we appeal to facts, what do we see ? Why this—that since
we have taken their cern free, they have taken ihs of our
goods than ever; and by referring to Porter's Tables it will
be seen that in the years 1832, 1833, and 1834, when we took
none of their corn they took more of our manufactures than
ever they have taken since, when we have taken corn to the
amount of many millions sterling. In reality we are now
suffering, not from the effects of agricultural protection, but
from the effects of not having agricultural protection enough.
Had we had protection for other agricultural produce, flax
and hemp, tallow and butter, clover and rape-seed, so much
land would not have been turned to the growth of wheat ; and,
in that case,_ the price of that article would not have fallen so

. low as to put -a stop tortl gultivation ;. and we are now suffering
from the effect of, bad seasons superinduced upon a short
quantity Sawn, owing to the said low prices. I cannot
speak with patience of the mischievous policy at pre-
sent fashionable. Is not the riches of:a country the produce
of its soil? Can an: sane man deny this position? And is
it not admitted and acted on when we look back and see what
pain's were formerly taken to naturalise the mulberry and the
silk-worm, and how much is now dOne to promote the growth
of our own tea in our own territories in India ; and if our
millions of waste acres at home could be made to grow cotton
wool, what toil and trouble'We should be at to introduce the
plant ! What companies would be formed to cultivate it !
What premiums would be offered for successful exertion !
What exemptions'from rates and tithes and taxes to guard
the speculators against loss What a rise there would be in
three millions of neres of reclaimable land if these specula-
tions succeeded. But let me ask, 'is corn which they will
groo,4,ks Valuable product than cotton, which they will
not Aiikteare we to let these acres remain waste, and as
many more remain half-cultivated, which would produce
more wheat than ever we should be able to consume, and, at
the same time, spend our revenues in expatriating .the very
people who are necessary to their cultivation. The whole is
anomlaous and inconsistent, but the real fact is, we are under
the government of men who are ignorant of the true inter-
ests of the nation, and have not ability or inclination to learn
them. But I have already gone beyond the bounds of a let-
ter, and 1 therefore conclude.