The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-09-10 00:00:00

satisfy the demands made upon him by the state
and for local_ purposes, without the property-.of the
landlords being- wholly or in part confiscated.
How far is such confiscation to be permitted to go ?
The question is a serious one and must 1)5 answered.
The Times, indeed, contemplates no such result
occurring; no diminution of cultivation, or dete-
rioration in the value of prOperty in the soil. How-
ever prices may be reduced, and whatever new
arrangements may have to be made as to rents,
&c., he says,—

" It by no means follows that a smaller portion of the
iation3l capital will be appli‘:(l to agriculture than before.
If we take the different branches of our manufactures as
examples, we find that low prices have lcd invariably to
the discovery of means by which the cost of production
is diminished. and that a decrease in the cost has eventu-
ally led not only to increased production, but an increase
in the number of persons employed. And there are many
reasons for believing that this same result will take place
with respect to nf#riculture ; and we shall probably find
that the chief setiFible effect of the late change will he
that agricultural erodece generally will be somewhat
cheaper, but tlia ray r,urt of capital employed upon
agriculture in the United KinQdom will be increased, and
that capital so employed will receive the ordinary return
as profit. Such, we believe, will be the effect as regards
the commodity produced and the capital to employed in
producing it. The effect as respects the persons em-
ploved in agriculture will, however, be of a somewhat
different description."

The public, unfortunately, are not so sanguine,
as the Times with respect to the effect to be. pro-
duced by an increased employment of capital upon
the soil. High farming has not been found ex-
tremely- profitable thus far; and there is undoubt.-
edly a limit beyond which it cannot be advantage-
ously carried. And, moreover, there is a certainty
looking us in the face that it never Will he carried
to the extent of attempting to convert the waste
and poor soils of this country into productive land
whilst there are rich virgin soils to be found in. the
world upon the cultivation of which the industry
and capital of our farmers can be so much more
profitably employed. Besides, we must bear in
ct;iwl that the same prices which are conceived
likely to tempt farmers in this country to invest
more capital in the soil, and to devise improved
modes ofi cultivation, will operate equally to stimu-
late the foreigner to new exertions. Already the
opening of our markets has raised prices in every
grain producing country in the world greatly above
their previous level ; and increased cultivation will
go on until that level, or one below it, has been
reached. Another important change must take
place before we shall he enabled to attain the mini-
mum cost at which the foreigner, or the settler on
his virgin soil can supply us. The taxation which
the British farmer and labourer have to bear must
be lightened, or swept away altogether, and the
tastes. the comforts, the diet, and other wants of

each must be cut down to the fcreign standard.
The Times, indeed, contemplates a change in
another direction, and would create a new state of
society. Agriculture, he says, must be conducted
upon the same system as the mills and manufac-
tories of Lancashire and Yorkshire ;

" Agriculture must become a manufacture, and a farm
be Governed very much as a mill now is. The practical
result. from which there is now no escape is. that capital
employed on the land. to be prnfitable, must be employed
in large masses; and the persons who so apply it can no
longer be a sort of upper .faria labourers. The farmer,
in short, must be a highly-educated man of business,
-wielding a large power, employing many skilful labourers,
and using in the business of production all the appliances
which a constantly improving science discovers. His
mind must be open to receive every new discovery. He
must not, with the blind presumption of ignorance, turn
away from that. which is new because it is new, nor be
content to tread in a beaten path because his fathers trod
there before him. Agriculture, in fact, will hereafter
require men possesEcd of intelligence, of an order superior
even to thfA of ac mere manufacturer."

Of course, this is the tendency of the whole sys-
tem of political economy, under which we are at
present governed. Everything must be achieved
by the operation of " large masses of capital,"
between the possessors of which and the labourer,
toiling for his weekly dole, there must he no mid-
dle state. The present race of farmers and yeomer,
a race which has been for centuries the glory, the
ornament, and the safeguard of the land,—must
become the serfs and drudges of the capitalist.
The iron rule of the mill must be extended over
every meadow and every cornfield; and the same
bell summon the ditcher anti the ploughman to his
daily toil which now calls the poor factory child
from its brief sleep of exhaustion. No weekly
returning market day ; no joyous old English
gatherings at the perioileal fair will be permitted
break the dull monotony of the land.. As in the
factory we are to see, the Tines informs us, that
" no power is lost, no time is lost, every act is per-
formed with mathematical precision. (!) The thing
produced must be the result of tke least possible
expense, every calculation must he so nicely made,
and the system of production so accurately appor-
tioned," &c., that the profit can be determined to
breadth. Under such a system pigsovill
row kick over the
of course never ku
milking pail. Poor things, it will be mut.l, 1c
are ever permitted to breathe the fresh air, for fear
of any loss of that valuable product in the estima-
tion of the Huxtables and Cairds of this enlight-
ened age—their ammonia! Blight or smut will be
unknown ; and the elements and seasons put un-
der a new and " mathematical" regularity. It is
really almost impossible to treat speculations so
absurd with anything approaching to gravity.
They describe to us, however, a picture of the future
social condition of Great Britain under its newly-
adopted free trade policy.
And for whose benefit is this great revolution to
be effected At whose dictation is so important a
class as the farmers of great Britain to be reduced
to the condition of daily labourers ? For what
are we thus to pinch and screw, to convert men,
endow-L(1 with souls and senses capable of enjoy-
ment, into automatons—mere machines ? To
cheapen calico and woollen goods; to swell the
profits of the mi!lowners and the capitalist; to
bolster up the success of a policy which already
threatens to dismember the empire, and to resolve
the entire social fabric into its original elements.
One consolation, however, we derive from the con-
viction that Englishmen are not very likely to be
gulled into submission to absurdity so palpable.

Tag evidence, taken before the committee ap-
pointed to inquire into the subject of the accom-
modation to be provided for the shipbuilding trade
of this port, has just been published in a pamphlet.
Its substance we gave in the columns of the
tandard several weeks ago in a series of articles
written whilst the enquiries of the committee were
going on. Neither the evidence nor the .report of
the committee will furnish much new matter to our
readers, although we should recommend to such of
them as are interested in the subject—and there
are very few who are not deeply interested—a re-
perusal of the whole, which is now plac d before
them in extenso,

It is impossible to arisa from the perusal of this
report without being convinced that the shipbuilders
of our port have been an ill-treated body throughout,
not so much, perhaps, by the.present dock com-
mittee, as by their predecessors, whose mistakes
rendered. the course pursued, during recent years,
imperative upon them. These mistakes consisted
in the appropriation of the river frontage in the
centre of the Dock Estate too exclusively ter the
increase of dock water space. We perfectly agree,
moreover, with Mr. J. Bramley-Moore that the
Finance committee of the day committed a grievous
blunder in giving up to other than for purposes
intimately connected with the shipping interest,
such sites as those occupied by the tobacco wafe-
houses, &c. ; still it cannot be concealed that the
shipbuilding and ship-engineering
,trades of the
port have been always too little recog'hised; and,we
fear, remain so up to the present moment.
From whatever cause this neglect, so strange on
the part of the merchants of the town, the corpora-
tion, and the ratepayers, has arisen, it is clear that
some prompt Seri must he now made to keep the
population engaged in these trades, within the
boundaries of the palish, and, if. practicable, within
those of the corporate estate. At present there
seems, according to the evidence of Mr. Hartley,
the engineer of the decks, but one mode of effct-
ing this. Mtr. Hartley informed the committee, as
his opinion,
that, "if the timber trade were re-
moved to the north, the shipbuilding trade might
be accommo.:ated on the Harrington Estate." We
may add that a portion of them might be located
even nearer to the cent to of the town, and the
population employed by them remain occupiers of
the property of the corporation, and contributers
to the rates of the parish of Liverpool. "If " Mr.
Hartley adds, "you take the timber to the south,.
you must accommodate the shipbuilding at the
north, but not south of the fort." The site thus to
be reserved is wanted, we are told, for the large
steamers, the rapid erection of which has somewhat
marred the prer.lous calculations of the dock com.