The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-04-27 00:00:00

THE CORN LAWS.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The Sun reiterates its denunciations of the corn laws—do-
nunciations, which our contemporary, with becoming modesty,
admits that he does not seek to base on " reasoning and facts"
—denunciations, therefore, (as may be supposed) of au ex-
ceedingly harmless de,cription. Here is a sample:—
" We are convinced, by some attention to the subject, and
the example of the corn law advocates, that reasoning and fuels
are alike thrown away on the expediency-mongers, who can
argue themselves into the belief that to shut out a.supply of
food, and, to lay impediments in the way of our St‘ii4toners and
merchants importing what cargoes they like, ansf irr the way of
our manufacturers exchanging their cotton cloth rai'the corn
of Poland or Prussia, that now to indict a palpable injury on
the commerce of the country; will be at souse future time of
great benefit to the people."
The corn laws, then, if the reasoning which we have quoted-,
be good for aught, are to be deprecated, because, they " lay
impediments in the way of our shipowners, merchants, and
manufacturers."
The "impediment" created by the corn laws, is only the
"impediment" created by all good government—the " impedi-
ment," in short, which laws are designed to offer, to the ex-
ercise of free will in any individual or class, when that free will
has for its object, the infliction of injury on other individuals or
classes. Ship owners, and merchants, and manufacturers are,
beyond question, highly important and valuable portions of the
community ;—yet, they are, certainly, not more important nor
valuable than landowners, and farmers,• and agricultural la-
bourers—to say nothing, for the present, of manufacturing la-
bourers, whose well-being is intimately connected with the well-
being of the population engaged in the cultivation of the soil.
The ship-owners, and merchants, and manufacturers, therefore,
would have no social nor equitable right (if they entertained
the desire) to force upon the community, a commercial system,
of which the result must be, the destruction of landowners, the
confiscation of farming capital, and the permanent debasement
of the whole labouring population, manufacturing as well as
agricultural. But our evening contemporary is not warranted
in assuming that such a system of policy as it recommends, is
in favour with the great body of shipowners, and merchants.
and manufacturers. True it is, undoubtedly, that the princi-
ples of that policy are in high favour with a small class of spe-
culators, whose enormous capitals enable them to controul the
movements of the body of manufacturers and merchants, as
well as to give what direction they please to a-portion of our
commercial legislation. True it is, moreover, that the prin-
ciples of commercial policy which find acceptance, also,
with the whole mass of idle consumers—with the men,
whose means of enjoyment are increased in direct pro-
portion to the depreciation in value of labour, and of
all the products of labour! But the great body of shipowners,
merchants, and manufacturers have, we repeat, no interest in
the policy which exalts the power of enormous capital; and in-
creases, beyond the power of calculation, the enjoyments of the
idler. That policy has not benefited manufacturers, merchants,
or shipowners. It has, on the contrary, lessened their profits,
and increased their dependence on the merely moneyed class.
Our shipowners are much less prosperous now, than they were
before the legislature sanctioned the ruinous scheme of regulat-
ing the home market, by prices in the markets of other coun-
tries. Manufactures and merchants also—excepting a small
number in the first class—have been fearful losers by the adop-
tion, even partially, of those economical principles, which de-
light the sordid soul of Joseph Hume, and the calculators of his
school. The interests of English shipowners, of English mer-
chants and manufacturers are precisely the same in point of fact,
with those of the • English farmer. The English manufacturer
needs, above all things, a good home market. The English
shipowners and merchants need, above all things, a good home
market, and a good colonial trade, together with a foreign trade
conducted on national principles; that is to say, a foreign
trade, confining itself to an exchange of the surplus produce of
England for the surplus produce of other countries. The pre-
sent foreign trade of England, we need scarcely observe, is not
such a trade as we have here described. • Our preireurforeign
trade can be maintained only by beating down the wages and
'profits of large classes of producers. to the lowest possible point,
and, to the extent of that diminution in wages and profits, des-
troying the home market—of all markets, the most valuable.
Then, as to exchanging our surplus products—such process of
exchange being the legitimate scope of foreign trade—every
year sees a larger portion of the products of native industry be-
coming " surplus," so far as regards the power of native produ-
cers to put chase these. Every year which has witnessed an in-
crease in the amount of our foreign exports, has witnessed, at
the same time, a decline in their market value; and that de-
cline has been, invariably, preceded and caused by (it may be)
a decrease in the profits of certain orders of manufacturers—
but, certainly, by a decrease in the wages of the manufacturing
labourer. In exact proportion to the spread of that trade, in
virtue of which Manchester clothes half the world, has been the
spread of nakedness amongst the wretched operativ-es in Man-
chester itself.

The shipowners, the merchants, the manufacturers of Eng-
land, therefore, have, we again state, the same interests to de-
fend as the English farmer; and these interests are to be de-

fended by the operation of .the same principles—principles, the
reverse of those, which Joseph Flume seeks to inculcate, with
an amount of zeal, absolutely disproportioned to the feeble mea=
sure of talent, which he and his disciples can bring to bear upon
the question. The shipowners of England are entitled to a mo-
nopoly of the colonial trade of England, as well as of the coast-
ing trade. The manufacturers of England are entitled to a
monopoly of the English market. The farmer, in like manner,
is entitled to claim as customers, the manufacturing population
of England, together with the men who work her marine. The
merchants of England would, under the influence of such a
system, find ample and profitable scope for their enterprise in
the intercourse between England and her colonies; on the one
hand—and, on the other, in bringing into England those ar-
ticles of commerce which English industry and the English cli-
mate cannot yield.

We have not hesitated to claim for the farmers, the ship-
owners, the manufacturers, the merchants of England,—and
through them, to claim for the agricultural and manufacturing
masses—the benefit of a series of "monopolies," because we are
never deterred by the influence of a name, not popular, from
maintaining a sound principle. of which the unpopular name
may happen to be, however imperfectly, representative. But,
in simple truth, the "monopolies" in question would consti-
tute merely an extended system of mutual insurance between
shipowners, manufacturers, merchants, and farmers—a system
of mutual insurance, in fact, between the various orders of pro-
ducers—against the destructive schemes of the non-productive
, idlers.

The free-trade policy has already proved most injurious to
our shipowners and manufacturers ; and in injuring these
classes, that policy has deeply injured the English farmer. But
the extension of the free-trade system directly to the farmer—
the repeal of the corn laws—would not repair the mischief al-
ready inflicted o 4 the manufacturer and shipowner. Quite the
reverse. The farmer would, then, become a w.-ase customer to
the manufacturer, than the manufacturer has for, a long time,
been to the farmer. The misery of 700,000 half-starved hand-
loom weavers would not be in the slightest degree, alleviated,
by the fact, that 1,000,0(X) of agricultural labourers had been
rendered no less wretched, by a repeal of the corn laws !
The following passage from the columns of our evening con-
temporary is not uninstructive:—
" It (the corn law) is as clear a case of one class plundering
or rubbing another, by means of a law, and God knows such
cases are both numerous and flagrant, as is to be found in the
whole compass of history. Seeing the influence which country
gentlemen and their advocates have had over the public mind
by ringing the changes on such fine phrases, as ' protection to
native industry," independence of foreigners,' ' native-grown
wheat,' &c. we have come to the conclusion. that to argue such
a question by decimal fractions, touching prices here and
abroad, &c. is a wrong mode of proceeding, and that the only
way to get rid of the scoundrel law is to speak.of it plainly as it
deserves. Who in his senses, in speaking of robbery, stops to
argue its remote advantages; though it is possible that it may
not be wholly and altogether without them? Robbery is not in
our estimation made one particle less obnoxious or less repug-
nant to morality by being solemnly decreed by those landown-
ers who are to profit by it."
After such an effusion, the writer need scarcely have taxed
his simplicity in the production of the following sentence :

"As reasoning and facts are alike wasted on the landowner.
we have come to the resolution of speaking of the corn law.
only with that indignation which all such nefarious schemes u
legislation deserve."

There is, however, one assertion of our contemporary, which
is really remarkable.
" 'The principle of securing home markets to home produc-
ers' may be an excellent one; but for such °four manufactures,
the' cotton for example, which both draws its whole material
from foreign countries, and produces a large proportion of its
finished work for the fireigu market, it is wholly inapplicable.
In truth, native' and 'home,' as applied to our political em-
pire, to the dominions under the government of the Queen, have
no meaniug in commerce and manufactures."

We do not enter upon the question of the advantages or dis-
alvantag,es of our cotton manufacture—although, on that sub-
ject, certain conclusions most unfavourable to the free policy,
might, we think, be yers easily established. We hasten to the
concluding sentence—to the statement (which is designed to
wear a profound aspect (that " native" and " home" " have no
meaning, in commerce and manufactures!" If so. why, let us
ask do the whole argnments and calculations of the flee-trade
politicians rest upon the differences between "native" and " fo-
reign" prices, and "native" and'" foreign" means of produc-
tion ? If "native" and "home" have no meaning in commerce
and manufactures—then, the questions of " dearness" and
"cheapness" which constitute the sum total of a free trader's
confession of faith, are, in like manner, utterly free from the
taint of meaning !