The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1852-01-01
European Corn Trade for I54 Years.

European Corn Trade Tor 154 Years.
MIR. Brown, one of the secretaries of the Stats
tica Society, has published at once the most COM
pendious, comprehensive, and accurate view Of the
corn trade Of this country which we have ever seen
The quantities of wheat and wheat flour imported
and exported the price, the duty, and tho titles of
acts Of Parame mt eguatpg the duty, are given for
l54 years single folio page, in excellent readable
print, and with lucid arrangement. MIR. Browns
tabular view is calculated to suggest many inter-
esting and instructive differences, and shall sub.
init o few. For the first "a years, or from 1897 in
the reign of William Ill, we imported neither
foreign nor colonial corn. but We exported corn,
and in some years to the amount Of above 100000
quarters In the four years Of the seventeenth
century, the average price is about 53s., which is
about los. quarter more than the four years of
our free trade, or lis, including the duty now
charged. In so far, then, as bread corn is con.
ceined, our people are at present better off than
they were $50 years ago, in the good old times Of
William of Orange. The most remarkable fea-
ture of the early years of the table, reckoning
from the commencement Of the eighteenth century,
is the extraordinary nuotuation OF prizes In I706
and 1907 we have corn at 23s. "a and 26s. Id. and
in 1909 and ITO at lis. lid and Ills. Cd. In l728
we have it at nearly sos and in 1872 have 1t at
2is Id, and in l7i0 it is los ID. In short, in oEe
year there was glut, and in another, not far from
H. something very like a famine. This miserable
state of things evidently arose from want Of capital
want Of agricultural skill, want of cheap means OF
conveyance. ard reliance on the broken reed OF
native resources Ia every one Of the years Of
scarcity in question we were considerable ex-
pofters, by the help Of bounties which existed
from the revolution, and which enhanced the
cost to the consumer, without having the slight
est effect in reducing steadiness Of supply. From
1857, about the era of the commenccm ent of the
cotton anufacture, and consequent rapid increase
OF population we began to import largely; and i'm
porting and consuming more than we exported.
England became virtually an importing country,
the export being Fictitious. From 1857 to 1898
prices, with agricultural improvement, became
more steady, and ranged only bet ween Sos and SIS.
Foreign corn, for the protection Of landlord rent,
being all the while subject to duty when wheat
was under certain price. The object aimed at
in this kind Of legislation seems to have BEEN never
to allow the price to fall below SIS, or Whereabouts;
for, when under this, the duty levied on the
foreign article ranged, as Mr.. Brown has shown,
from lis. to 25s quarter Thanks to Peel,
Russell, and free trade, we have our bread corn
at this moment, with more than double the mouths
to feed by lis. quarter below this long che
rished landlord standard. In the third year of the
war Of the French revolution, the price Of wheat
rose to 75s, and in the fourth to 7Ss. In l795 and
1889, with war and deprecated currency, it rose
TO 1l3s. ard Il9s and with the same bad allies in
1872, it to l26sthat is to be tween three and
four times its present COST and about $50 per cent
higher than it was in the years Of famine, 1889 and
l1J0-the last Of which was emphaticay called by
the Scots "the black" or direful spring. From
the year 1923, downwards to the entire exploding
OF the system in lSiS, direct tax on bread has
contributed to the public treasury. In 1912, this
tax produced CT i,6l5 and in the whole period
it has yielded to it, as we find by Mr.. Browns
table, G7 SCI 100. IL is quite certain then, that
the whole affair, bounties, duties, and sliding scale,
from the first days of King William to the last days
of Robert Peel, has be en- virtually a swndle on
the public, the swindlers all the whilo laboring
under the strange Authorization that they were
honest men, and even patriots IN sort of brooches
pocket sonsc, -Eaanl'1r.