The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-05-28 00:00:00

A CANDID CONFESSION.

Only a few days ago, when our corn markets ware
rising, the organs of the free trade party were unani-
mous in their assertions that the low prices which had
Prevailed were exceptional facts. Mr. Economist Wilson
laboured to persuade us that the British farmer was suf-
fering from panic alone ; and that lie had only to resume
possession of his senses in order to realise advanced rates.
The Manchester Guardian indulged in the same strain ;
and prophesied of a good and dearer time coming. All at
once, however, we learn that these eminent authorities
have been only hoaxing us. On Wednesday last, we
found the London correspondent of the Guardian deli-
vering himself after the following fashion :
'• As was anticipated, Mark Lane went down yesterday
rather heavily. The cold weather and backward season gave a
slight encouragement to the artificial effort to get prices up;
but fine weather has neutralised it."
__ _

--"As,;;;;iiaia:;;"--FrW, tell us by whom ! Some
very good judges failed to anticipate anything like a fall;
and gave very substantial reasons why such fall could not
take place. We were actually going to send grain to the
United States, instead of importing it from Brother Jona-
than. Norfolk and Suffolk flour was to drive Genessee
and Ohio straight out of the market, and European
growers to supply the consumers in the Atlantic ports. A
change, however, has come over the dream of our con-
temporaries : and bread, in England, is to be cheaper
than ever. Prices abroad are, in fact, discovered now to
be no criterion of prices here. Hear what the same writer
tells us :

" It so happens that abundance and regular free trade have
been coincident; and until there are indications of probable
scarcity, it is injurious to the farmers themselves to encourage
the notion that prices are likely speedily to rise again. Every
thing indicates that during the present year a low range of
prices will prevail ; nothing but the certainty of a deficient har-
vest will send prices up ; and the quotations of prices at Stettin
or Odessa, or New York, are worthless, because they vary with
the last intelligence from this country, and are no evidence of
the actual state of things. We require not only several years,
but years during which there shall occur at least one deficient
season, in order to ascertain what shall be the average range of
prices under free trade. Meantime our business is to go stea-
dily forward, and wait the changes that are sure to arise, from
the prodigious emigration now going on, and the atten-
tion directed to Central America and Australia."
There is no telling then what prices are to be. Under
such circumstances, can any body tell what rents are to
be, or how long there will be such a thing as rent ? We
are to wait, it seems, until we have " at least one deficient
season," before the average prices under a free, trade sys-
tem can be ascertained ; and how many of our,Armera
will be ruined in the interval, how many estate,s be ]sanded
over to mortgagees,
ourtgmage philosopherees, and how
willmanpery gohs potad t 'of fobiterolo
ogether,ll