XXVI.
"They'll be rather glad to spare me,
In their present precious fix:
Charley Wood is somewhat shakey
With his recent dodge on bricks.
Palmerston's in hottest water,
What with France, and what with Greece;
As for little Juggling Johnny
He'll pay anything for peace.
XXVII.
"Faith, I'll do it! were it only
As a most conclusive trick,
And a hint unto our fellows
That I'm quite as good as Dick.
Hang him! since he's made orations,
In a sort of mongrel French,
One would think he's almost equal
To Lord Campbell on the bench.
XXVIII.
"Time it is our course were severed;
I'm for broad distinctions now.
Since my mills are fairly stoppaged,
At another shrine I bow.
Send me only out to India
On this patriotic scheme,
And I'll show them how protection
Is a fact, and not a dream."
[THE GREAT PROTECTION MEETING IN LONDON.]
We have considered it our duty to record in a permanent form the proceedings of the most important meeting which has been held in Britain, since Sir Robert Peel deliberately renounced that policy of which he was once the plighted champion. Not many months have elapsed since the Free-traders were wont to aver, with undaunted effrontery, that all idea of a return to the principles of Protection to native industry was eradicated from the minds of the British public; that, saving some elderly peers and a few bigoted enthusiasts like ourselves, no sane man would attempt to overturn a system which placed the untaxed foreigner on a level with the home-producer; and that cheapness, superinduced by exorbitant competition, was in reality the greatest blessing which could be vouchsafed to an industrious people. The great measure of the age, originally propounded as an experiment, was eagerly assumed as a fact; and we were told, for the first time in British history, that legislation, however faulty it might prove, was to be regarded as a thing irrevocable.
It was, however, rather remarkable that, whilst making these broad assertions, the Free-traders manifested a distinct uneasiness as to the working of their favourite scheme. If the measures which they advocated and carried were indeed final, there was surely no need for the bluster which was repeated, week after week, and day after day, from platform and from hustings, in Parliament and out of it, in pamphlet, broad-sheet, and review. If no considerable party cared about Protection, and still less meditated a vigorous effort for its revival, why should Mr Cobden and his brother demagogues have uselessly committed themselves by threatening, in so many words, to shake society to its centre, and overturn the constitution of the realm? Men never resort to threats, when they deem themselves positively secure. Such language was, to say the least of it, injudicious; since it was calculated to create an impression, especially among the waverers, that the temple of Free Trade, (which, by the way, is to be roofed in next year,) might after all have its foundation on a quicksand, instead of being firmly established on the solid stratum of the rock.
No charge can be made against the country party, that they have precipitately commenced their movement. On the contrary, we believe it would be impossible to find an instance of a vast body of men betrayed by their appointed leader; aggrieved by a course of legislation which they could not prevent, since a direct appeal to the suffrages of the nation was denied; injured in their property; and taunted for their apathy even by their opponents—yet submitting so long and so patiently to the operation of a cruel law which day by day was forcing them onwards to the brink of ruin. The practical working of the withdrawal of agricultural protection dates from February 1849, when that event was inaugurated by a Manchester ovation. In April the price of wheat had fallen to about 44s.—in December it was below 40s.; and then, and not till then, was the spirit of the people fairly and thoroughly aroused. We need not here advert to the foolish and deplorable trash put forward by the political economists in defence of a system of cheapness, caused by an unnatural depreciation of the value of British produce. That such a depreciation could take place, without lowering in a corresponding degree the rates of labour all over the country, and curtailing the demand for employment in proportion to the diminished means of the consumers, was obviously impossible. Nor could the wit of man devise any answer to the proposition at once so clear and so momentous, that the burden of taxation, already felt to be severe, was enormously aggravated and increased by the measures which virtually established a new standard of value for produce, and which violently acted upon the incomes of almost every ratepayer in the kingdom. But it is well worth noting that the leading advocates of Free Trade, previous to the conversion of Sir Robert Peel, cautiously abstained from arguing their case on the ground of permanent cheapness. We have on this point the valuable testimony of Mr Cobden, who repeatedly declared his conviction that the farmers, and even the landowners, would derive a large and direct advantage from the repeal of the corn laws. We have the treatises of Mr Wilson, Secretary of the Board of Control, pathetically pointing out the positive detriment to the country which must ensue from a long continuance of low prices of grain. And finally, we have Sir Robert Peel's distinct admission that 56s. per quarter is the average price for which wheat can be raised with a profit in Great Britain. It was not until all rational hope of a rise was extinguished—until the amount of importations poured into this country demonstrated the fallacy of all the calculations which had been made as to the amount of surplus supply available from the Continent and from America—that any section of the Free-traders ventured to proclaim the doctrine that cheapness, ranging below the level of the cost of home production, was a positive advantage to the nation. It is true that this monstrous fallacy is now maintained by only a few of the more unscrupulous and desperate of the party; and that the Ministry have as yet abstained from committing themselves to so fatal a dogma. They would have us rather cling to the hope that present prices are only temporary, though they cannot assign a single plausible reason to account for the continued depression. They talk, in vague general terms,—the surest symptoms of their actual incapacity and helplessness—of "transition states of suffering," of "partial derangement inseparable from the formation of a new system of commercial policy," and much more such pompous and unmeaning jargon; whilst, at the same time, they refuse to commit themselves to any decided line of action, if it should actually be found that they were wrong in their calculations, and that prices so low as to be absolutely ruinous are not temporary in their operation, but must hereafter prevail as the rule. How often have we heard, on the part of their organs, even within the last two months, joyous assertions that the markets were again rising, and foreign supplies diminishing! Within this last fortnight, the Times, emboldened by the continuance of cold easterly winds, and the backward state of the vegetation, prophesied, with more than its usual confidence, a rapid rise and a consequent diminution of cheapness. On the 13th of May, our prospects were thus described:—"Happily just now corn is rising, and we are quite as likely to see wheat at 60s. as 30s. in the course of the year." On the 14th, the journalist again returned to the charge—"Just now the market is rising all over the world, and it seems likely enough that the farmer will soon have, in the natural course of things, what Mr G. Berkeley wants to obtain by a return to Protection.... The same agreeable tidings pour in from all parts of the kingdom, and indeed from all parts of the world." Alas for human prescience! On the 21st, the note was changed, and the bulletin from Corn-Exchange announced that "the trade was dull, and the prices gave way 1s. to 2s. per quarter before any progress could be made in sales." The aggregate average of wheat for the six weeks ending May 11th, was 37s. 1d.—a rate at which no one, not even the most sanguine dabbler in agricultural improvement, has ventured to aver that corn can be raised, under present burdens, without occasioning an enormous loss to the grower.
We do not complain of these calculations or prophecies, however fallacious they may be; but we do complain, very seriously, that Ministers, their organs and their underlings, are halting between two opinions. If cheapness is their watchword and principle, then they have no right to plume themselves upon any rise in the value of produce. We can understand the thorough-paced Free-trader who tells us broadly, that the cheaper food can be bought, no matter whence it comes, so much the better for the community. That is, at all events, plain sailing. But we say deliberately, that a more pitiable spectacle of mental imbecility cannot be imagined than that which is now presented by the Cabinet, who, with cheapness in their mouths, are eagerly catching at the faintest shadow of a rise in prices; and who, did such a rise take place, would be the first to congratulate the country on the improved condition of its prospects! Mr Wilson, who usually communicates to the Premier, in the House of Commons, the invaluable results of his experience, has been blundering on for months in the preposterous hope of getting rid of facts by trumpery and fallacious statistics; and has at last landed himself in such a quagmire of contradictions, that his best friends are compelled to despair of his ultimate extrication. Yet this gentleman is one of those authorities whom we are told to regard with reverence; and whom we do regard with just as much reverence as we would bestow upon a broker's clerk who had set up for himself in business as a dealer in the scrip of exploded and abandoned lines.