subject, great exaggerations have prevailed. Both friends and foes of the corn-law unite in one common opinion, namely, that the admission of foreign corn would have the effect of driving the poor land of this country out of cultivation; and they have thus raised an alarm in the minds of the agriculturists, which creates the most serious difficulties to those who advocate an alteration of the law. Nor is such an apprehension to be wondered at; for if that were indeed the effect to be produced, the misery and desolation it would create throughout the county would be such that, deeply as I am convinced of the necessity of a change in the law, I own my zeal would be considerably abated by so dismal a prospect. My opinion, however, is, that no such effect would be produced. I do not believe a single acre, now cultivated with profit, would cease to be cultivated after the alteration of the law. The reasons on which this persuasion is founded are as follows: In the first place, although the average price of the last three or four years exhibits a great fall as compared with that which existed between 1810 and 1820, the latter being 87s. 10d., and the former under 60s., I am not aware of any quantity of poor land having been thereby thrown out of cultivation. I have neither seen nor heard of it; and being myself an occupier as well as a proprietor of poor land, I can take on me to assert, that if, in some partial instances, such an effect has been produced, it at least has been any thing but extensive. The effect which has been produced b believe to be this, that very expensive manures have not been purchased so largely, and spread with so prodigal a hand on the land; thar draining and other expensive improvements have been carried on with less rapidity, and that clover leys have in some instances been allowed to lie down for a longer period than heretofore. 929d vsil

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It may, however, be objected, that if foreign corn be admittedy it must displace an equal quantity of British growth; and thiss would be true if our ordinary produce were equal to our ordinary consumption, but of this I entertain great doubts. For forty-seven years, ending 1820, there never has occurred a period of five years in which an import of foreign corn has not existed and it will be seen by a reference to the account already given of the imports of foreign corn, that, with one exception, each succeeding ten years exhibits an increase of these imports as compared with the period immediately antecedent this can only be accounteds for by supas posing that the ordinary produce had fallen short of the ordinary's consumption. The experience of the last six years appears ceroo tainly at first to lead to a different conclusion, bat if there be any truth in the explanation I have given of the circumstances which have enabled us to go on during that time, without an import of corn, except indeed that admitted during the last and present year,

namely, an exhaustion of the stock in hand, it will not be found to be such an exception as to invalidate the hypothesis I have adopted. It should also be borne in mind that in 1820 we began with large stocks; there had occurred in the two antecedent years the largest import of wheat ever known, amounting to 1,582,379 quarters, and this was followed by one or two years of extraordinary abundance; the result of which was, that at the harvest of 1821 there was a much larger stock on hand than is usually the case, and which must have required, under any circumstances, a certain period to bring down to the usual level.

I have thus, Gentlemen, endeavored to place before you the leading features of this most interesting and important subject, and if I have been at all successful in explaining to you the grounds of the opinion I entertain on it, I shall, I hope, stand excused from the charge of needlessly agitating so momentous a question. I should indeed feel that had I remained inactive, impressed as I am with the necessity of an alteration of this law, I should have betrayed a most important trust confided to my hands when elected as your representative, that of endeavoring to remove a most serious obstruction to the peace and the future welfare of the community I should have held myself in some measure responsible for the evils which the continuance of the present corn-law must inevitably entail on our country. The effort of combating the prejudice which prevails on the subject has been painful to me in no ordinary degree, and deeply have I regretted the hostile attitude in which it has made me appear to a class so deservedly esteemed as the agricultural body-with whom I am intimately allied, not only by a community of interest, but union of feeling in all save this question. I would implore them to weigh well the arguments which have been advanced on it; and to reflect whether, independent of all pecuniary considerations, the re-establishment of that harmony which used to prevail amongst different classes in this country, and which this question has already done much to weaken, would not be cheaply purchased by conces sions no less demanded by fair argument than called for by the experience of those benefits which have resulted from the former existence of that most important of all branches of commerce, the trade in corn. I would implore them to consider that agriculture, although like other interests subject to temporary derangement, never can be other than permanently florishing in, that country: where trade and manufactures abounds and that any other advan tages to the agricultural interest than those which naturally arise from the increase of the industry, the skill and capital of the country are purchased at the expense of other classes, and though they may essentially injure, can never promote the real interest of Englandu

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YOUR Letter to the Electors of Bridgenorth is distinguished by a fairness and liberality which give it every claim to attention on, the part of those to whom the corn 'question is a subject of interest,,, Agreeing with you in many of the positions which you support, but being of opinion that there is much danger, in the present state of public feeling, of precipitancy in the alteration of the corn-laws which are now in force, I take the liberty of address-" ing to you, as one of the most able and candid supporters of the commercial interest, a few remarks on the subject, to which an attentive perusal of your letter to your constituents has given rise. You state, in unequivocal terms, your "feur" of "the immediate effects" to be produced by an alteration of the present system of corn-laws, unless we proceed in the measure with great prudence," and that, in amending such laws, it is most desirable that we should not expose to unnecessary hazard an interest so extensive and so important as the agricultural interest of this kingdom."

When a gentleman like yourself, of independent character and circumstances, and eminently conversant with the philosophy, if not the details of commerce, comes forward as the champion of the mercantile world, and, with a candor and ingenuousness which are highly creditable to you, makes the admission which I have now mentioned, it ought fairly to be expected to curb the impetuosity of those who are disposed to overlook practical considerations of expediency, in their anxiety to conduct legislation on philosophical principles.

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The reign of ultraism in politics is over; but there is, "în fashion, a species of ultraism in political economy, which requires the more attention from practical men, because it is thought to evince, in the possessor, a somewhat flattering degree of liberality and freedom from prejudice, which may be safely indulged in by the most cautious politicians, because it does not carry with it the indications or obligations of party.

Landholders have been represented as a proud and interested body of men, having the power to check improvements, and the disposition to make laws in subserviency to their own purposes. Farmers have been described as mercenary and discontented, as making the most of their grievances, and watchful for opportu nities of sounding them to the world. Agricultural meetings and petitions have been condemned as an unnecessary interference with the progress of liberal opinions, and decried as unworthy attempts to excite warmth, and to raise up an improper influence in the consideration of an important national question. And yet who were the persons that commenced the discussions on the corndaws two years since? It cannot be denied, that agriculture had sbeen in a state of extreme suffering for some years previously, and that it was then just beginning to emerge from a state of exhaustion which had scarcely ever a parallel. It is likewise very -well known, that at that time manufactures and commerce were in a high, and I believe, unexampled state of prosperity, founded, in a very important degree, on the increased consumption which the improvement in agricultural affairs produced at home; and yet this was the period chosen for commencing an outcry against landholders and farmers, which could not, when soberly viewed, but be regarded as premature and mistimed. They were represented as gorged with the spoils of the public, though their prices were not one-half what they once were; and the most sensitive feelings of our nature were excited against them, though every one at all conversant with the subject must have known that such prices, for the short period of their continuance, and you yourself admit the fact, could not, by any means, make up the severe losses of former years.

It is not to be wondered, then, that meetings should be held in the country as well as in towns; and that associations should be formed for the protection of agriculture, when a single movement of the corporation of London, or of any principal manufacturing town, excited, perhaps, by the exertions of a single bustling individual, is able, in an instant, to sound an alarm through the whole kingdom. Agriculturists may be unreasonable in their claims and expectations, and many of them are so; but they would really be the stupid and doltish individuals which some are

inclined to represent them, if they did not see that the simultaneous efforts which the activity and union of commercial men are so readily capable of making against their interests, aided, as they generally are, by much of the powerful exertions of the daily press, can alone be met and counteracted by activity and union on their part.

The most important part of the discussion which is carried on in your letter to your constituents, relates to the necessity for certain alterations in the corn-laws, and the advantages which such alterations would be likely to produce.

You give it as your opinion, that the landed interest attach far too much consequence to the present corn-laws; and that their fears are greatly exaggerated, as well respecting the quantity of wheat that could be furnished to us by foreign countries, as the price at which it could be introduced into Great Britain. But supposing this to be the case, are not the advantages to be derived from the admission of foreign corn overrated in precisely the same ratio?

If your statement is correct, that the free importation of corn is so small a boon, as far as agriculture is concerned, as not to be worth refusing, how are we to reconcile this view of the subject, to the magnitude and importance which it is represented to possess in commerce, and which makes it dangerous to be withbeld?

In optics, it is well known that indistinctness of vision produces many errors in the estimate of the size of bodies; a crow in a mist appearing as large as a man, or a horse as a castle. With men of less clear understandings, I should be inclined to refer, what appears to me so material a defect in the main argument of your letter, either to that species of optical deception which I have just mentioned, or to the microscopic influence of a fervid imagination. y

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Importation of corn is considered as operating in two ways; first, by reducing its price in this country, and thus allowing British manufacturers to diminish the wages of labor, and therefore to compete with other countries where the prices of labor are less; and, secondly, by enabling our manufacturers to transmit to such countries as send us corn an equal amount of their manufactures, which could not be purchased in any other way.

When you state that 600,000 quarters of wheat are as much and even more than can reasonably be expected as an average of importation, which, at 24s. per quarter, would cost 720,000l. from the grower, it cannot but forcibly press itself on the consideration, whether this amount of annual importation would be at all likely to remove the difficulties under which manufactures VOL. XXVIII. NO. LV. P

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