The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-08-24 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL TRADESMEN'S CONSERVATIVE
ASSOCIATION.

THE MONTHLY MEETING of this ASSOCIATION
will be held in the LARGE, Room,: Yptift,, TTEL,
THIS EVENING (Funny), the 24th instant.wliens/t mbers
are respectfully requested to attend to meet CitESSIVELL
CRESSWELL, Esq.
The Chair will be taken at Eight o'Clock Vreciady.,
W. J. PEACHEY, Secretary.
Committee Room, August 20, 1838.
'No Person will be admitted without producing his Ticket.

THE CORN CROPS AND THE CORN LAWS.

(From the Newcastle Journal.)

The state of the Wheat crops throughout the country is a
subject of much attention and anxiety at this moment; and
a diversity of opinion appears to prevail as to the prospects
of the ensuing harvest. A season of severe scarcity is pre-
dicted on the one hand, and on the other we are assured that
the harvest will realize a fair average produce. Speculators
in foreign grain, of course, encourage apprehensions of a
deficiency in the year's crop, their object being to raise the
price c,I corn, and then enter their stock on hand for home
consum ion at a nominal duty; and there are party politi-
cians who h not scruple to inveigh against corn laws on the
presumption ~,bat those apprehensions are well founded,
thereby spread'. g the delusion still further. Though the
state of the weath for some weeks past bas been exceed-
ingly, unfavourable, at though in some districts the crop
. - .

mag b4s clefieienti yet

country the year's ar‘p will not fall much below an average
one. This wilt W evident on perusing the accounts sub-
joined, which wi have selected front other similar ones which
have reachepis from all parts of the kingdom.
ENGLAND.
HA M p‘HIRE.—The wheat crop in this county, and indeed
in the whole south and west of England, never looked cleaner
or better. It is true that, from the heavy effects of the late
severe winter, it is thinner than could have been wished for;
but then the straw is abundantly fine, and, from the extra-
ordinary improvement in its appearance and growth, arising
from the very genial weather of the past three months, it is
expected that it will yield an average crop within a sixteenth.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.—AIthough the crops of corn in the
northern parts of this county are later than they usually are
by three weeks, yet they are in fine condition, and will soon
be ready for the reapers. The wheats are changing fast, and
promise one of the most abundant yields we have experienced
for many years; whilst complaints are made in some districts
of the maggot, the grub, and other insects injuring the ears,
in this neighbourhood nothing of the kind has been dis-
covered, but fine, healthy, and large ears give promise of
great abundance. Some barley will be ready for cutting
during the ensuing week, and we may safely aver that a
larger, a finer, or a heavier crop has never been seen stand-
ing. Oats are as good as barley, and are better corned than
the farmers have known for the last twenty years.
SUSSEX.—Wheat has continued to improve, but not to
ripen so fast as was anticipated; even where its aspect is good
and in nowise beaten down by the storms, heavy rains, or
strong winds, it still promises a very fair crop of corn and
straw in this neighbourhood, proportionate with the thinness
of the plant on the field, the ears being generally of a good
size and weight. and as yet free from blight.
SosixeseT.—The harvest has begun in our neighbourhood.
in sheltered grounds the crops are remarkably heavy, the
ears being full and the straws fine. But in exposed localities,
which were much visited by the north windsot the winter and
spring, the stalks are very thin. Taking all the lands to-
gether, the crops will fall considerably below the average.
WARWICKSHIRE.—With reference to the corn crops, con-
flicting accounts are given. The corn districts nearest hand
certainly do not appear to have suffered as yet—the wheats
look strong and healthy, and if the weather takes up soon the
harvest will be an abundant one. The late untoward weather
has nevertheless induced many large speculations in corn,
and they have been carried on to such a great extent that it
is confidently anticipated by experienced parties that foreign
corn, in the course of the present month, will be imported and
sold at the lowest scale of duty.
CUMBERLAND.—The continued wet has a serious effect
upon the grain crop; the wheats are generally very thin
planted, and the white wheats are in many places much milde-
wed. The harvest will be a late one; we conceive it will be
full six weeks before a commencement will take place, and
should the weather continue in its present wet state, it may
be much longer. Barley and oats are making a bulky crop,
and probably some little barley will be harvested before the
wheat, but it will he confined to warm dry situations.
WORCESTER.—In consequence of the severe frost in the
winter, and the backwardness of the spring, the wheat was
unusually late in coming into ear, and since then the weather
has been cold and unsuitable for the wheat, during the for-
mation of the grain, which, in our opinion, will cause a seri-
ous deficiency in the yield, for in examining the ears, grubs
are to be found, where there ought to be wheat; and it ap-
pears to be general, for we have not found one field that is
not affected by
SHROPSHIRE.—The wheat crops would be greatly bene-
fitted by warmer weather, and more sun, they being very
backward, and what is still worse, very much infected with a
yellow maggot about the eighth of an inch long.
IRELAND.
The Dublin Evening Post, a paper that may be considered
high authority on the subject of agriculture, in a long and
able article on the harvest, states the gratifying fact that
"now at the present moment, there perhaps was never such
a prospect of an abundant harvest as there is in Ireland."—
"We have now before us" (continues our contemporary)
"a letter from a nobleman, than whom there is not a better
practical farmer in Ireland, from which we shall give the
following extract :—' On a tour through the midland coun-
ties Kildare, Meath, Longford, and Cavan, I have found
the present appearance of the crops luxuriant and promising
to an almost unexampled degree, and as yet not a stalk is
broken or laid. The weather, however, is unfavourable, the
hay badly saved, and ripening retarded for want of sun and
genial warmth.' We may add, that this statement is corro-
borated by communications received from various parts of
the country. In one word, should the weather clear up
within a week—but we would not extend the hypothesis much
further—the country will be blessed with abundance. Per-
haps, however, there never has been a more critical fortnight
in respect to food than the next will be."
SCOTLAND.

ABERDEEN.—The editi;;ofiiie-
Aberdeen Herald says:—
We had lately occasion to visit the more important districts
of Aberdeenshire, and from personal observation and the
opinions of experienced farmers, are prepared to lay as much
information before our readers as will enable them to form a
very just estimate of the state of the crops. In Garloch dis-
trict the crops are very late. Wheat is an average crop.
The same may be said of Barley, unless on very low-lying
farms, where it has been much injured by the late rains. In
the Mar district the crops are about three weeks late, per-
haps rather more Corn has a good appearance, and pro-
mises to weigh well, and give good straw. The crops are
further advanced in the Skene district than in any other, we
dare say, in the county. One field of Barley, in Mr. Valen-
tine's farm, is already turned, and we noticed a field of Oats,
on the same farm, beginning to colour. Harvest will be little
past the usual time in Skene. The late rains have been
much against the crops in the Vale of Alford, particularly on
marshy soils. Corn looks well; Barley fair. The crops in
Buchan suffered a good deal from the cold spring. Some
fields of corn and barley have been blasted; but, speaking
generally, an average crop is promised.
AYRSHIRE.—Never, we believe, were the crops more plen-
tiful than this year, but they must be late, and exposed, in
many parts, to great risk, although favourable weather should
soon ensue.
EDINBURGHSHIRE.--We regret to state that the weather
still continues very unfavourable for the prospects of the
farmer. It has rained more or less every day this week; and
some of the showers being unusually heavy, we were afraid
that the corn in many places must be greatly laid. Even if
the weather should speedily improve, as we fervently hope it
may, all kinds of crops will be unusually late; and it seems
to be generally feared that the harvest would be rather under
average.
BERWICKSHIRE.—BarIey, Wheat, and Oats are now all
in full ear, and, where they are not beaten down by the
rain, look extremely well, generally speaking; but certainly,
unless the weather takes up immediately, and becomes per-
manently warm and dry, the most serious apprehensions may
be entertained for the harvest, which, under any circum-
stances, must now be a late one.
The above accounts from the principal of the corn growing
counties vary in many particulars; though all of them speak
of the crop as nearly an average one. Complaints are rife
of the maggot, grub, and other insects, but it is not probable
that the crop will any where suffer materially from these
causes. The greatest danger is apprehended from the late-
ness of the season, and the unfavourable state of the weather.
In Ireland, the wheat crop especially is represented as an
abundant one, and in Berwickshire and the Lothians the
barley and wheat crops are looking exceedingly well. Under
these circumstances, we are satisfied there exists but little
ground for the apprehensions which corn jobbers are endea-
vouring to excite in the public mind; for though in some
districts the wheat crop may be comparatively a failure, the
average will be little short of that of last few years.
A person who is said to have large dealings in corn, it is
stated in the London papers, waited on the Lord Mayor at
the Mansion-house the other day, for the purpose of inform-
ing bis lordship, as chief magistrate of London, that if Par-
liament did not interfere, bread would soon reach a famine
price, the immediate cause being the general apprehensions
of a deficiency of the wheat crop. This apparently disinter.
ested individual suggested that a petition from the Court of
Common Council should be sent to each House of Parlia-
ment, praying that Foreign Corn at present in bond should
be brought into the market free of duty. His lordship ac-
quiesced in the propriety of the suggestion, and accordingly,
on Monday last, convened a special Court of that body for
the purpose of " taking into consideration the present alarm-
ing rise in the prime article of human food; and at this meet-
ing a proposition to the above effect was discussed and nega-
tived. Thus the attempt of this " extensive" corn jobber to
Procure the introduction of foreign wheat to the manifest in-
jury of the British farmer was signally defeated.
The pretext of averting impending famine was too flimsy
to screen the interested motive of this heartless adventurer,
and his proposal was scouted accordingly. It needed, indeed,
but little discrimination to perceive that if the apprehensions
of scarcity were well founded,—if the crop of wheat were be-
low an average one,—the remuneration of the farmer could
only be found in the high prices which would necessarily fol-
low—it being a simple matter of arithmetic, and plain to
every one, that if forty shillings per quarter compensated him
with a crop of 750 quarters, it would require sixty shillings
to compensate him when the some relative quantities of land
and labour yielded a crop of butsoo quarters. The admission
of foreign corn, duty free, would no doubt reduce the price
of bread; but it would at the same time entail a ruinous loss
on the farmer. It would enable every foreign adventurer
to pocket his cent, per cent., but it would sacrifice the British
agriculturist. The hardship of high prices is now spread
over the entire kingdom—every class bears its proportionate
share, but if wheat were reduced by the admission of foreign
grain into the British market, duty free, from sixty-nine
shillings and elevenpence, its present average price, to forty
shillings, or fifty shillings, a corresponding loss would be sus-
tained exclusively by the growers of British wheat, who would,
in short, be defrauded of their property. But such is the even-
handed justice of the liberal clamourers after free trade.
It appears that there are now 700,000 quarters of foreign
Wheat in bond, the better half of which has been imported
withia the last two or three weeks on speculation that the
lowest rate of duty will prevail, when large quantities will,
of course, be entered for home consumption, at a nominal
duty of one shilling per quarter. If the object of the corn
speculators who have been so eager in spreading alarm as to
the state of the crops and the prospects of the harvest had
been to relieve the poor by reducing the price of bread, the
present prices of wheat are such as to enable them to do so
with profit to themselves, The duty is now sixteen shillings
and eightpence per quarter, and the next return probably
will not rate it at more than six shillings and eightpence, so
that no obstacle except the mercenary one created by inte-
rested corn-jobbers prevents the introduction of foreign corn
Into the English market under the existing law. Besides it
does not follow that if Parliament were at once to grant the
wish of these foreign adventurers, the price of corn in the
English market would be lowered, because the importer is
not compelled to dispose of his wheat immediately on reliev-
ing it from bond ; but having paid the duty, or entered it for
Smoayth: it
preventive
tai nv
ed in
f
home consumption, duty
pfrreoep,erh.e sell
e
what way he may think
expectant famine is in this instance completely fallacious.
If relief is to be administered, under the present high prices,
let it fall equally on all classes of the community, and not on
one class exclusively, as would be the case under the opera-
tion of the plan proposed.
The above plan, it is obvious, could only originate with a
small knot of corn-jobbers in the metropolis, where the scheme
was hatched, and if it could have been carried into operation
speedily, that is before fresh importations of foreign grain
were made, the present holders of bonded grain would have
been enriched by some thousands of pounds; but immedi-
ately on the arrival of more grain prices would settle down,
and would continue to fall until they operated as a check on
further importations.
The outcry attempted to be raised against the corn laws is
not less absurd than the motives of the individuals are inte-
rested; for even supposing that the corn laws were at this
moment abolished, would that secure us against unfavourable
seuous? Certainly not; nor would it render our supply of corn under such circumstance more secure than it
now is. The
farlilcaecioofu si ovinneg; hypothesis of the free-traders is evidently a
became
as wages would fall in proportion as the
p
could be eme cheaper, it is plain that no presentedinduce-
ment to corn speculators,—and they would
then be Y =BMus as or more so than they are now,'--to

induce them to supply the English market in preference to
any other; and, therefore, •no greater security could be af-
forded for a regular supply during a scarce season than at
present exists. Indeed our supply would then be less se-
cure, for under the present system a comparatively small
supply of foreign wheat is required, and for that supply we
can afford to give such a price as will ensure it in any market
in the world, whilst under the free system, the supply re-
quired would be exceedingly large and the money we had to
offer for it would not be such as would present an inducement
for it anywhere.
A favourable change has already taken place in the state
of the weather, and if it continue fine a salutary check will
be administered to the operations of those who are speculating
on the miseries and privations which a scarce season would
produce. Whatever apprehensions might have been reason-
ably entertained at one period for the safety of the crops,
there now seems no ground to fear that the year's produce

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under favourable circumstances, there vvillbe plenty through-
out the land both for man and beast.