This is precisely what has been going on for the last two years. Landlords and farmers have curtailed their expenditure in consequence of the great fall of prices; and the parties who have actually suffered the most are the tradesmen with whom they commonly deal, and the artisans in their employment. It is impossible to affect materially the gigantic interest of agriculture without striking a heavy blow at the prosperity of home manufactures; and unfortunately these manufactures, or at least many branches of them, are now liable to foreign competition. If it should be allowed that this is a true statement of the case—and we cannot see how it can be controverted—then it will appear that the working-classes, the vast majority of whom are engaged in producing for the home market, have lost largely in employment if they have gained by cheaper food.
And it is most remarkable, that in proportion as food has become cheap in this country, so has emigration increased. That is apparently one of the strangest features of the whole case. What contentment can there be in a nation when the people are deserting their native soil by hundreds of thousands? They did not do so while the other system was in operation. Whatever were the faults of Protection, it did not give rise to scenes like the following, which we find quoted in the Economist of 17th April, as if it were something rather to be proud of than otherwise. The pious editor entitles it “The Exodus.” Certainly he and his friends have made Ireland the reverse of a land flowing with milk and honey:—
“The flight of the population from the south is thus described by the Clonmel Chronicle:—‘The tide of emigration has set in this year more strongly than ever it has within our memories. During the winter months, we used to observe solitary groups wending their way towards the sea-coast, but since the season opened, (and a most beautiful one it is,) these groups have been literally swelled into shoals, and, travel what road you may, you will find upon it strings of cars and drays, laden with women and children and household stuffs, journeying onward, their final destination being America. In all other parts of the country it is the same. At every station along the rail, from Goold’s Cross to Sallins, the third-class carriages receive their quota of emigrants. The Grand Canal passage-boats, from Shannon harbour to Sallins, appear every morning at their accustomed hour, laden down with emigrants and their luggage, on their way to Dublin, and thence to Liverpool, whence they take shipping for America.’”
And yet this wholesale expatriation is so far from appearing a disastrous sign, that it does not even excite a word of comment from the cold-blooded man of calculations. Truly there are various points of similarity between the constitution of the Free-Trader and the frog!
Remarkable undoubtedly it is, and to be remarked and remembered in all coming estimates of the character and ability of the men, styling themselves statesmen, whose measures have led to the frightful depopulation of a part of the British Empire. Remarkable it is, but not to be wondered at, seeing that the same thing must occur in every instance where a great branch of industry is not only checked, but rendered unprofitable. Succeeding generations will hardly believe that it was the design of the Whigs and the Free-Traders to feed the Irish people with foreign grain, and so promote their prosperity, at a time when their sole wealth was derived from agricultural produce. Just fancy a scheme for promoting the prosperity of Newcastle by importing to it coals to be sold at half the price for which that article is at present delivered at the pit-mouth! Conceive to yourselves the ecstasy which would prevail in Manchester if Swiss calicoes were brought there to be vended at rates greatly lower than are now charged by the master manufacturers! Undoubtedly the people of Newcastle and the operatives of Manchester would in that case pay less than formerly both for fuel and clothing—both of them “first articles of necessity;” but we rather imagine that no long time would elapse before there were palpable symptoms of a very considerable emigration. And lest, in their grand reliance in a monopoly of coals and cottons, the Free-Traders should scoff at our parallels as altogether visionary, we challenge them to make a trial in a case which is not visionary. Let them take off the manufacturing protective duties which still exist, and try the effect of that measure upon Birmingham, Sheffield, and Paisley. Of course they know better than to accept any such challenge; but we warn the manufacturers—and let them look to it in time—that the day is rapidly drawing near when all these duties must be repealed, unless justice is done to the other suffering interests. If they persist in asking Free Trade, and in refusing all equivalents or reparation for the mischief they have done, they shall have Free Trade, BUT ENTIRE. Then we shall see whether they—with all their machinery, all their ingenuity, and all their capital—with all their immunity from burdens which are imposed upon other classes—with all the stimulus given to them by the income-tax, now levied since 1842, in order that taxes weighing on the manufacturing interest might be repealed—can compete on open terms in the home market with the manufacturers of the Continent. Do not let them deceive themselves; that reckoning is nigh at hand. They must be content to accept the measure with which they have meted to others; and we tell them fairly, that they need not hope that this subject will be any longer overlooked. Not one rag of protection can be left to manufactures of any kind, whether made up or not, if Free Trade is to be the commercial principle of the country. If so, the principle must be universally recognised.
What is now taking place in Ireland, must, ere long, we are convinced, take place in Britain. Nay, in so far as Scotland is concerned, the same symptoms are exhibited already, almost in the same degree. In one point of view, we cannot deplore the emigration. If it is fated that, through the blindness and cupidity of men whose religious creed consists of Trade Returns, and whose sole deity is Mammon, the system which has contributed so much to the greatness and wealth of the nation, and which has created a garden out of a wilderness, is to be abandoned for ever, it is better that our people should go elsewhere, and find shelter under a government which, if not monarchïcal, may be more paternal than their own. It is a bitter thing, that expatriation; but it has been the destiny of man since the Fall. They will find fertile land to till in the prairies of the West—they will have blue skies above them, and a brighter sun than here; and, if that be any consolation to them in their exile, they may still contribute to the supply of food to the British market, without paying, as they must have done had they continued here, their quota to the taxes of the country. But we must fairly confess that we feel less sympathy for those who go than for those who are compelled to linger. Until the home demand is revived—which can only be in consequence of the enhanced value of home produce—we can see nothing but additional misery in store for all those artisans and operatives who are unconnected with the foreign trade. With regard to that trade, we have yet to learn how it has prospered. Those who are engaged in it admit that, in spite of increased exports—which, be it remembered, do not by any means imply increased demand—their reasonable hopes have been disappointed; and that in regard to the countries from which we now derive the largest supply of corn, their exports have materially decreased. That is a symptom of no common significance; for it shows that, simultaneously with the increase of their agriculture, those countries are fostering and extending their own manufactures. As for the other—the home trade—it is, by the unanimous acknowledgment of our opponents, daily dwindling; and the income of the country—as the last returns of the property-tax, which do not by any means disclose the whole amount of the deficit, have shown us—has fallen off six millions within the last two years. Were we to add the diminution on incomes under £150 per annum, we have no doubt whatever that the loss would be found to amount to more than three times that sum. All that is so much lost to the retailer and home manufacturer. For a time, even yet, cheapness may serve to palliate and disguise the evil; but it cannot do so long. Many important branches of industry, such as the iron trade, are in a state of extreme depression. The evil is not confined to the mother country; it is impoverishing the fairest parts of our colonial empire. Some of the sugar-growing colonies are on the verge of abandonment. Unless a very different policy from that adopted by the Liberals is pursued and sanctioned by the people of this country, the catastrophe cannot long be delayed; and then, perhaps, the British public, though too late, may be instructed as to the relative value of colonial possessions of our own, and those belonging to states which do not recognise reciprocity.
Years ago, when the Free-Traders were in the first blush of their success, and the minds of men were still inflamed with the hot fever of speculation, the advocates of the new system were requested to state in what way they proposed to employ that mass of labour which must necessarily be displaced by the substitution of so much foreign produce instead of our own. They answered, with the joyousness of enthusiasm, that there would be room enough and to spare in the factories for every man who might so be thrown out of employment. It was not until an after period that the stern and dreary remedy of emigration was prescribed and enforced—not until it had become apparent from experience that all their hopes of increased profit from foreign trade and expected reciprocity were based upon a delusion. Then indeed the misery which had been created by reckless legislation was exalted into a cause for triumph, and the Exodus of the poor from the land of their birth, wherein they no longer could find the means of labour, was represented as a hopeful sign of the future destinies of the country.
We are very far, indeed, from blaming those who, at the present time, declare themselves averse to any violent changes, and who think that some remedy and redress may be given, without having recourse to an entire alteration of the principle upon which our present commercial policy is based. It may be that time is yet required before the effects of Free Trade can be fully felt and appreciated by some of the classes of this country; and, certainly, the first step which ought to be taken in the new Parliament, should be a readjustment of taxation, corresponding to the altered circumstances of the community. Of course, as this demand is founded strictly upon justice, it will be opposed strenuously by many of those who glory in their Liberal opinions; but we believe that the great bulk of the British people, whatever may be their thoughts on other points, have that regard to justice, that they will not countenance oppression. It may be that the agricultural classes cannot yet expect to receive that measure of relief which they have waited and hoped for so long. The partial failure of the last harvest on the Continent, though it has not brought up prices to a remunerative level, has had more than the effect of checking their further decline; and that circumstance, we are bound to admit, may have some influence on the minds of many who are slow to believe that foreign importations can really affect the permanence of British agriculture. The experience of another season may be necessary to open their eyes. So far as we can gather from the opinions of men who are engaged in the trade, and who are best qualified to form a judgment upon such subjects, we may look almost immediately for a great increase of importations, and a rapid decline of prices. The failure on the Continent did not extend to the wheat crop—it was limited to the rye and potatoes, the customary food of the peasantry; and it is now ascertained that there is a large surplus of wheat ready to be thrown into our ports. But it would be out of place to discuss such points just now. The verdict lies with the country, to which Lord Derby has appealed. If that verdict should not be of a nature to enable him at once to apply a remedy to agricultural distress, by the reimposition of a duty on corn, then we must look in the first instance to such a readjustment of burdens as shall at least give fair play to the cultivator of the soil. But there is much more than this. The strength of the Protective case lies in its universal application to all classes of the community; and it is not we, but our opponents, who affect to regard it as a question in which no one is interested beyond the landlord and the tenant. We look upon it as of vital importance to the retailer, the tradesman, the artisan, and the home manufacturer, and to all who labour for them; and it appears to us that the time has now arrived when a full and searching Parliamentary inquiry should be made on the subject of the cheap loaf in connection with the rate of wages, and the prosperity of the home trade. Surely the Free-Traders can have no reason to object to this. They ground their case on philanthropy and regard to the interest of the poor and labouring man, and in that respect we are both agreed. Well then;—if, as we think and say, agricultural distress, occasioned by the low prices which have prevailed in consequence of the large importations of foreign corn, has had the effect of lessening employment generally throughout the country—a position which, in our mind, is much strengthened by the enormous and unprecedented increase of emigration—surely that proposition is capable of tangible proof or equally distinct refutation. Let us know, from authentic sources, not from partial or interested assertion, whether, along with the cheap loaf, the people have had full and remunerative employment—whether the condition of the working-classes and of the home interests has been improved by the change or not. The inquiry undoubtedly would be an extended, but at the same time a most valuable one. It would necessarily, in order to arrive at a fair and thorough understanding of the subject, embrace the present state of every trade as contrasted with that of former years—it would show us in what way the home market has been affected by what we must still be allowed to term a diminution of the means of the purchaser. Surely such a subject as this is well worth the pains of inquiry. Parliament cannot be better occupied than in receiving evidence upon the condition of the people. And we cannot rate too highly, either for the present or the future, the importance of such an investigation in checking and correcting, or, it may be, in confirming the doctrines of political economy, as they are usually quoted and received.
Some, no doubt, may be interested in opposing such an inquiry. We have little expectation that the Manchester men will accede to any such reasonable proposal; for, as we have already said, we regard this outcry of theirs for wild and sweeping reform simply as a ruse to withdraw the attention of the public from the disastrous effects of their lauded commercial system. Lord John Russell and his immediate Liberal followers would probably oppose such an inquiry as impious, because casting a doubt on the infallibility of Whig tradition. But we are convinced that sensible and moderate men, of every shade of opinion, would rejoice to see this vexed question brought to something like a practical test; so that, whatever policy England may pursue for the future, it shall at least have for its object that of promoting the welfare and the happiness of the people.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.