Have not you seen that, during one year of greatest prosperity, the price of wheat rose to 58s. 8d. per quarter, far higher than it was in ten years, 1831–40, before the repeal of the Corn Laws, whilst during the present time of depression it is down to 41s. 5d., and that, in 1835, before the repeal of the Corn Laws, it was down to 39s. 4d.[94]
Cannot you see that cheap food is dear if the causes of its cheapness deprive the labourer of that employment which enables him to purchase it? Cannot you see that, although a healthy competition stimulates production, a crushing competition in the end causes the rise of prices by the lessening of production?
Do you not know that, in the opinion of many political economists, dear food has been considered a cause of progress and prosperity to a nation, by stimulating its inhabitants to exertion and thrift,—notably so in the case of Holland?
Do you not know that, in many countries, where food is cheap, the natives are degraded and wretched?
Cannot you see that the revenue of the country must be raised in some manner, and if a tax be put on corn, it may be taken off some other article of consumption, almost equally important? and therefore that, if the substitute be judiciously chosen, the tax on it comes back to the consumer in some shape or other? Do you not know that an import tax does not always fall on the consumer?[95]
Cannot you see that the want of a light tax on corn (I do not defend the Corn Laws as they existed, for they imposed an excessive tax) has ruined agriculture, and you are preparing for yourself a serious difficulty? In case of war with any combination of strong maritime powers[96] wheat will rise to famine rates.
Don’t you see that if we transferred a small portion of the tax on tea, sugar, coffee, &c., giving a preference to our dependencies in the case of wheat, we should not only encourage our home, but also our colonial, industries, which are trembling in the balance between existence and nonexistence for want of some slight fostering care.
You are like Nero fiddling while Rome was burning. You are fiddling with your Free Trade, whilst England is going to ruin.
How can it be otherwise? Unlimited foreign competition must necessarily end in disaster. Don’t you see that you are handicapping your people in every way. They have higher wages than other nations. You tax them more heavily, and you pass enactments to prevent their working long hours. You thereby place them at a disadvantage with people who are thrifty and industrious and are not restricted in their hours of work. The same amount of money now buys only half the labour it did forty years ago, this increases the cost of production. Competition forces your manufacturers to work only three or four days a week. This again increases it. Increased leisure gives opportunities for intemperance. This again has a deteriorating effect on produce. Your best hands emigrate to prosperous countries not cursed with free trade,—another cause of deterioration in quality of manufactures. The cheap freights, almost nominal, place foreign productions in England at prices very little beyond that at which they can be produced in their native country.