The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-04-17 00:00:00

TUE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

WHAT THE FARMERS MAY EXPECT.

The blockade of the German ports by the Danish fleet,
has been gladly seized hold of by the importers of grain,
as an argument in favour of checking the continued
decline of prices, which was becoming alarming. Already
the scale has been turned, and a shilling advance has been
secured at Mark-lane. The following remarks, however,
by the London correspondent of the Manchester Guar-
dian, are worthy of consideration by those who augur
much benefit from such a fact :

" It is proper," he says, " to warn your readers that the
repeal of the corn laws has somewhat altered the position of
Mark-lane, so far as it has hitherto been considered as an index
to the markets of the kingdom, and therefore the controller of
the averages. The change is operating in various ways. People

are beginning to learn l'iow to import on their own account,
instead of buying as usual in Mark-lane ; and ports, not hitherto

considered recipients of for

n grain, are now rece

This is undeniably the case. For several weeks past it
has been remarked in our leading metropolitan circulars,
that the bulk of the foreign grain arriving, even in the
Thames, was imported for account of, and delivered direct

to, the millers themselves, and never was offered in the
market at all. By-and-by, many of our principal mar-
kets, especially inland, will only serve to register, as a
guide to the importers, the price of the home-grown sam-
ples offered. The further remarks of the writer are not
of a very consolatory character to the farmer—
" It was supposed that the supply would somewhat fall off
after the opening of the ports, it being presumed that lower
prices would check importation. This has not hitherto been

If our

prospects receive no check, and everything go on favourably,
we are likely to hare prices as low as they were in 1835, and
that of itself will act as a check. The average price of wheat,

in 1835, was 31

was 365., being the lowest that had occurred for exactly one
century previously, as may be seen by reference to Took,l's
History of Prices. There is no use shutting one's eyes to the
fact, that for some time longer prices will continue to recede ;
and, as thie was one of the objects aimed at by the repeal of

the corn laws, it is not 'a
matter of surprise or regret that i
should be so."

It is, by-the-by, rather assuming too much that the
prices even of 1835 will operate as a check upon importa-
tion ; and that prices may not range even much lower
during the present than in that year. Already, with a

harvek deficient in yield, the average has been reduced,
by importation, to about 445. per quarter ; and, with an
abundant harvest at home, even a trifling cessation of
imports cannot have any great effect in checking a further
reduction. " This," however, " was one of the objects
aimed at by the repeal of the corn laws." Which of the
trimming Peelite county members durst have told their
constituents this important fact when soliciting their
suffrages ?

EPIGRAM
The following epigram was written on Hill, printer to
King James 11., doing penance :

Penance enjoined, durst Hill refuse
To trudge five miles with pease in 's shoes ?
No—but bid to fast, the sly sinner
Resolved to stand ur on his dinner;
So boiled his penitential pease,
To give both feet and conscience ease;
And then, his church's rule to keep,

In soup did penance ankle deep.
Hence an archway this inference draws,
What nead we feat a dying cause?
'Tis plain long since that crafty Hill
The pulse of hoping could not feel.

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS OF MR. R.
BEARD, JUN.