The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-03-12 00:00:00

lying statements and worse arguments to sign peti-
tions for the equalization of the sugar duties—
what must inevitably be the result of continued agi-
tation and continued hampering of the government
upon this question ? Why, obviously to impede
any just and beneficial settlemant of our relations
with Brazil, and to drive that country into the adop-
tion of the hostile commercial policy which is
dreaded.

The Government of Brazil have imbibed the no-
tion that we cannot do without their markets, and
moreover that we must have their cheap sugar. In
this absurdly exaggerated view of their ability to
coerce us into concessions, without anything in re-
turn, the outcry of free-traders, in parliament and
throughout the country, is strengthening them,
whilst it is tying up the hands of British negocia-
tors. Brazil stubbo-nly tells us that she demands
everything at our hands, and will give nothing in
return; and British merchants and British legisla-
tors—patriotic men !—reply to them, " Persevere in
your stubbornness; insist upon your full demands;
and you must succeed" ! Surely such policy is the
reverse of wise; and the Government of Brazil will
find, perhaps too late, that they are trusting a chi-
mera which will delude them. Brazil cannot dis-
pense with the cheap cottons and woollens of Great
Britain. In taxing them more heavily, they are
only taxing their own products, which are bartered
for them. They are only adding to the cost of their
sugar, coffee, and cotton cultivation, and increasing
the burthens of the Brazilian people.
And in the meantime, what is the position o
Great Britain to sustain the continued exclusion of
Brazilian products ? Last year the consumption of
sugar in Great Britain was greater than it has been
in any former year, viz., 4,065,724 cwt. ; and yet
the average price, 345. Id. per cwt., was greatly
less than it has been for many years past. The
supply has increased—the consumption has in-
creased—the price has diminished ! These are cer-
tainly not indications of our inability to wait for a
cheap article until the Brazilian Government chooses
to be a little more reasonable in its demands.

We deprecate, therefore, the attempts now making
—factiously we think—to embarrass the Govern-
ment with respect to this question. Those attempts
are only retarding the consummation which their
authors profess to seek, and to seek only,—viz., the
supply of cheaper sugar for the British consumer.

The gentlemen who conduct the League press
are a superlatively wise generation. They know
positively everything. They can instruct the legis-
lature how to legislate, the landowner how to let
his land, the farmer how to cultivate it, merchants
and brokers how to conduct their business, and we
dare say, if needful, could descend to teach the mi-
nutiae of cookery, and the routine of the kitchen
and the scullery. Amongst this class, the Man-
chester Guardian is pre-eminently wise ; and has
recently taken under his fostering tuition the mis-
guided agriculturists of Great Britain, who for cen-
turies, it would seem, have been labouring under a
total ignorance of their own trade, and have been
committing the folly of attempting to get a little
knowledge by experience, when an overwhelming
quantity might be had from the same source applied
to by our contemporary—viz., the pages of the
Penny Magazine. We will endeavour here, for the
benefit of our country readers, to convey to them a
few of the Guardian's latest discoveries.

A correspondent, it seems, (who, by the bye,
dates from Liverpool,) has been reminding our Sir
Oracle that more than one year's rent has to be
paid to get a crop of wheat, and that, even taking
this into account, the reduction of price, which
would have to be submitted to under the operation
of a free trade in corn, would sweep away the whole
amount payable to the landowner. To this the
Guardian replies, ex cathedra:—

"The point relied upon by our correspondent consti-
tutes one of the stock-fallacies by which the advocates of
the corn-law either delude themselves, or seek to mislead
others; and, although we have answered it many times
already, we feel obliged to our correspondent for again
bringing it under our notice; believing that nothing but
a reiteration of colt-eel views and sound principles (.') can
effectually remove the deep-seated prejudices on the sub-
jec~ of protection, which a long course of vicious legisla-
tion has created in the public mind."

We make a bow, of course, and listen to the phi-
losopher's demolition of the stock fallacy in ques-

ion. Here it is :

" Our correspondent, in estimating the number of
years' rent really payable on a crop of wheat, has forgotten
that a large portion of every farm, on which wheat is
grown, must be appropriated every year to the raising of
grass, hay, and corn, for the horses employed upon it, and
to a variety of other purposes productive of little or
nothing that can be carried to market ' • and we believe the
general calculation is, that, on an arable farm, cultivated
under the best system of husbandry, and where the wheat
crop is mainly relied upon for the payment of rent, rather
less than one acre in four is cropped with wheat in one
year. Thus each acre of wheat would have to pay the
rent of four acres, instead of two."
We apprehend our contemporary is a little wide
of the mark here. The object is, of course,—a
League object,—to shew that upon a wheat farm
there is‘above four years' rent for free trade to cut
and carve at, before touching the profits of the
farmer. One-fourth only of such a farm is in
wheat every year ; and the remainder only " raising
grass, hay, and corn, for the horses employed upon
it."! A profitable kind of cultivation this would be!
A farmer, after the Guardian's model, of course
grows no turnips, no clover, no potatoes, no peas,
beans, vetches, and only as many oats as his horses
consume ! He has no young stock to feed, no
sheep, no nothing. We should like amazingly to
see the internal arrangements of such a farm. But,
to quote our contemporary again,—
" This is not all. It is clear that the rent must be paid
not by all the wheat produced, but by that portion only
which is sent to market. That which is eaten by the
farmer, his family and labourers, pays no rent; neither
does that which is retained for seed; and we imagine it
will be found, that only about one-half of the wheat pro-
duced is sent to market, or contributes in any manner to
the payment of rent. If this view is correct, it will be
found that the produce of each acre of wheat sold is
charged with the rent of some seven or eight acres of land
under cultivation; and, consequently, the rent constitutes
a much more important part of the market-price than the
writer of the preceding letter, and many other persons
with him, are disposed to believe."

What gormandizers must a farmer, his family,
and his two or three labourers, be, who consume
half the wheat produce of a wheat farm, say of a
hundred acres, besides the turnips, potatoes, and
other crops ! Let us measure their appetites. On
a farm of 100 acres, taking the Guardian's calcula-

tion, 25 will be in wheat. Take the produce at 50
bushels per acre, and the total produce is 1250
bushels, of which these gourmands eat 625, less
the amount required for seed, or, on a fair calcula.
tion, about 70 quarters per annum, or ten bushels
a week ! What horrible appetites ! But go on :
" This would probably be considered a pretty complete
answer to the question of our correspondent ; but we must
go a little further, with a view of pointing out another fal-
lacy which lurks in the letter, and which vitiates many ar-
guments and calculations upon this subject. Our corre-
spondent assumes, that, under a free trade in, and a di-
minished price of, corn, the expenses of cultivation would
remain the same. This is altogether a mistake. The
cost of cultivation (that is the money-cost, to which our
correspondent manifestly alludes) varies in an almost
exact ratio with the price of food ; and, if the selling
price of wheat should be greatly reduced by .free trade,
the expenses of cultivation would decline with it.
Why, just above we are told that the quantity of
wheat used by the farmer pays no rent at all !
never goes to market, and of course has no money
price ! Verily, this is a shifty kind of reasoner !
But go on again ; and mark, ye farm-labourers and
labourers of every description, to whom the League