The Free-Trade party, at a loss to explain this prodigious emigration, at a time when legislative principles were adopted, which, according to them, were diffusing universal prosperity, laboured hard to refer it to other causes. In the first instance, they said it was owing to the Irish famine; in the last, to Nature having scattered gold broadcast over the distant regions of the earth. Both excuses are devoid of foundation. The potato famine occurred in 1846; and since that time the harvests have been so good that, twice over, a public thanksgiving has been returned for that blessing. If Free Trade has really enriched the people of Great Britain, it should only have enhanced, except for other competitors, the market for Irish wheat, oats, and cattle, in the British Islands. It is rather too late in 1852, six years after the famine of 1846, to be reverting to that calamity as a cause of the present exodus; the more especially as, in the interim, between death and emigration, two millions of souls have disappeared in the Emerald Isle.[[7]]
The pretext of the immense and increasing emigration being owing to the discovery of the Californian and Australian diggings is equally futile and unfounded. Five thousand a-week are now going there, a large proportion of whom may reasonably be considered as having been set in motion by the El Dorado visions connected with those regions. But supposing that sixty thousand emigrants this year land in Australia, of whom forty thousand have been attracted by the diggings, there will still remain three hundred thousand emigrants who have left the British shores, chiefly for the United States, irrespective of the gold mania. What is the cause of this long-continued exodus of our people?—a state of things not only unparalleled in the previous annals of this country, but unexampled in the whole previous history of the world. There is but one explanation can be given of it: the Spectator, in an able article on this subject, has very candidly stated the cause—it is want of employment which drives so many abroad. Go where you will among the middle and working-classes, and you will hear this cause assigned as the real reason why so many are going abroad; and equally universal is the lamentation, that the persons going away are the very élite of our people—the young, the energetic, the industrious; leaving only children, and aged or decrepit paupers to conduct the industry of the country, and furnish recruits to sustain its future fortunes.
However lightly the Free-Traders may treat the annual decrease of one hundred thousand in our population, and the commencement of a retrograde movement in a nation which has increased incessantly for four hundred years, there is here deep subject for lamentation to every lover of his country, and sincerely interested in its welfare. There can be no question that an increase of the numbers of the people, if accompanied by no decline in their circumstances, is the most decisive proof of public prosperity: the Free-Traders themselves acknowledge this, for they uniformly refer with exultation to any increase, however slight, in marriages, and decline in paupers, which has occurred while their system was in operation. It is impossible to conceive that a nation is thriving under a régime which annually sends from three hundred thousand to three hundred and thirty thousand persons into exile. You might as well say that an individual is thriving under a dysentery, which wastes him away at the rate of two pounds a-day. The bonds of country, home, habit, and companionship, are never broken on a great scale, and for a long time together, by any other force but the force of suffering. A golden El Dorado, a passing famine, may for a single season or two augment considerably the number of emigrants; but these causes are ephemeral in their operation, because the first speedily leads to the fortunate region being choked up with entrants, the last to the wasted one being bereft of inhabitants. But want of employment, declining means of obtaining a livelihood, is a chronic disorder, which presses unceasingly upon the people, and may drive them into exile for every year of a century together. It was this cause, induced also by the free admission of foreign grain, which first ruined the agriculture, and at last put a period to the existence, of the Roman Empire.
As the increase of population in a healthy and thriving state of society leads to an additional increase, and constantly adds to the breadth of the basis on which the pyramid of the national prosperity is rested, so a decline in the numbers of the people is attended by a precisely opposite effect. In the first case, the prosperity of every one class reacts upon the prosperity of every other class; in the last case, their suffering communicates itself in an equally decisive way to every class around them. As thus the great trade of every nation is that which goes on between the town and the country, and each finds its chief market in the wants of the other, it is impossible that either can suffer without the other class dependent on the sale of its produce suffering also. Extraneous causes, simultaneously acting on the market, may for a time prevent this effect becoming conspicuous; but in the long run it is sure to make itself felt. If the farmers are suffering, the manufacturers will speedily experience a falling off in the home markets; if the manufacturers, the farmers are as certain of finding a diminution in the consumption of their rude produce.
It is now ascertained by Captain Larcom’s report, that the wheat grown in Ireland is less by 1,500,000 quarters than it was five years ago; and by the reports of the English markets for home grain, that a shortcoming to a similar amount has taken place in the home supplies of grain for the county markets. 3,000,000 quarters less of wheat is raised in England and Ireland than was done before Free Trade began. Supposing that an equal amount of other kinds of grain has gone out of cultivation, which is a most moderate supposition, seeing that 10,000,000 quarters of foreign grain are now annually imported, when there were not 2,000,000 before, we have 6,000,000 less quarters of grain annually raised in Great Britain than was done before Free Trade was introduced! The defalcation has been nearly as great in the supplies of cattle, sheep, and other animals brought to the English market. Beyond all doubt the value of the produce that is raised has sunk a fourth. The total agricultural produce of the two islands has been estimated, before Free Trade began, at £250,000,000. At this rate, the loss the cultivators have experienced from this source alone is above £60,000,000 a-year. The Free-Traders boast that it is £90,000,000; and considering the diminution in the supplies of grain and cattle raised at home, the estimate is not much overcharged. At all events, it is probably £75,000,000. This is the real cause of the prodigious emigration which is going on from every part of the country; and as this cause is permanent and ceaseless in its operation, the decline of our population may be expected to be as continuous and progressive.
This subject has been so well handled by Sir F. Kelly in his late admirable speech at Harwich, that we cannot resist the temptation of giving it publicity in a more durable form than a daily journal.
“Now let us see what is the quantity of wheat which is produced and sold in this country. In 1844, it was 5,456,307 quarters; in 1845, 6,666,240 quarters; and in 1846, 5,958,962 quarters. You will therefore see that the fair average of that production, taking the three years, was about 6,000,000 quarters of wheat produced by the farmers and cultivators of the soil in England. Now, let us see the years that succeeded 1849, for the returns pass over the intermediate years, before the repeal of the corn laws had a fair trial, during which there was only a gradual reduction of duty. In 1849 the Act of Parliament had complete effect. The production of wheat in 1849 was 4,453,983 quarters; in 1850, 4,688,274 quarters; and in 1851, 4,487,041 quarters. Now, taking the fair average, and speaking in round numbers, that would be a production in England of about 4,500,000 quarters of wheat per annum since the repeal of the corn laws. Then what is the difference?—that in the three years before the repeal of the corn laws the British farmers and cultivators of the soil produced and made a profit on 6,000,000 quarters of wheat, while in the three years succeeding, that important class of the people had fallen off in their production to 4,500,000 quarters. Here was a diminution of wheat in the country of 1,500,000 qrs. per annum. I shall not weary you by going into details figure by figure as to the diminution which has taken place in Scotland and Ireland, but I pledge myself that on these returns it will be found that the diminution is still greater in Ireland, though in Scotland it is somewhat less in proportion. The result of the whole is, that 4,500,000 quarters of wheat less was produced in England, Scotland, and Ireland during the three years after Free Trade had a fair trial, than in the three years before the passing of the act. I do not wish to trouble you further with these very painful details, but I will detain you a single moment while I refer to a return with regard to oats. In the years 1845 and 1846, there were about 2,000,000 quarters of oats produced in each year in this country. In the years 1850 and 1851, the production of oats in the country was under 1,000,000 quarters; so that while you find the falling off in the production of wheat in the country amounts to a quarter of the whole quantity, the production of oats is reduced from 2,000,000 to less than 1,000,000 quarters; and this, gentlemen, is the system of Free Trade which some of my friends among the electors say has been so highly beneficial to the people of this country.
And in answer to the common argument that, despite this rapid decline of agricultural production, the general well-being of the people has increased, Sir Fitzroy observes—
“Now, it has been asserted that the amount of poor-rates levied in the kingdom has been less in the three years since the repeal of the corn laws than in the three years before 1846. But let us look at the amount necessarily levied for the poor in England and Wales during the three years ending 1846, and the three years beginning in 1848 and ending in 1850. In 1845, there was raised for the relief of the poor £6,791,006. (“How much did the poor get out of that?”) I hope the whole of it. This I know, that we paid it all. In 1846, the amount raised was £6,800,623; in 1847, £6,964,825; in 1848, £7,817,430; in 1849,£7,674,146; in 1850, £7,270,493; and in 1851, £6,778,914; making, therefore, in round numbers, a million sterling more than was levied for the relief of the poor before the repeal of the corn laws. Now, it is easy for manufacturers, for those well-paid labourers who have not yet felt the dire and terrible effects of this fatal measure of legislation, to point to themselves, and to laud and rejoice at the increased prosperity of the country. I am not taking Manchester, Liverpool, and Stockport, any more than I do the counties of Suffolk or Essex, but I am taking the entire kingdom; and so far from the system of Free Trade having increased the general prosperity of the country, we find that £1,000,000 a-year more has been required for the support of the poor since than before the repeal of the corn laws, and before the entire system of Free Trade had arrived at its completion. But there is one more criterion by which to judge of the effects of Free Trade. No one will deny that the general prosperity of the country, and the amount of deposits in the savings banks, always proportionately increase. It is always important to see, whether what are called the lower, but I would rather say the labouring classes—a most important class, for on their labours depends not merely the well-being but the very existence of the rest of the community—it is always important to see whether, after any great legislative changes, they are really so far benefited as to be able to confer that great advantage on their families of increasing their deposits in the savings banks. Now, in 1844, the amount of deposits was £29,504,861; in 1845, £30,748,868; and in 1846, £31,743,250. Here we arrive at the dividing line, for in 1846 was passed the measure to which I am now beseeching your cool and calm attention. In the same year it began to operate on that numerous class who contribute deposits to the savings banks, and let us see what was the result. In 1847, the amount fell from £31,743,250 to £30,207,180; in the next year it was £28,114,136; in 1849, it was £28,537,010; and in 1850, £27,198,563. This is the last year to which the returns have been corrected.”
We have not observed any answer attempted by the Liberal papers to these convincing facts; they content themselves with abusing the able gentleman who brought them forward.