“Wheat sold in the market towns of England and Wales.
| Before Free Trade. | After Free Trade. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Qrs. | Qrs. | ||
| 1844 | 5,456,307 | 1849 | 4,453,983 |
| 1845 | 6,666,240 | 1850 | 4,688,274 |
| 1846 | 5,958,962 | 1851 | 4,487,041 |
“We have taken the three years immediately preceding the commercial changes in 1846; because, up to that period, nothing had occurred to induce our agriculturists to raise less wheat than formerly. On comparing their results with those of the three last years, which were years of complete Free Trade, we find a very striking difference. In round numbers, it may be stated that the average difference between the two periods amounts to no less than one million and a-half of quarters. During the first period, in other words, there were sold annually six millions of quarters, and during the last, four millions and a-half.
“Let us next turn to Ireland, where the returns exhibit a much larger proportionate decrease. We only possess authentic accounts from the sister island for four years; but, owing to the great care and diligence bestowed by the Government Commissioners upon the subject, we believe they approach the truth as nearly as the nature of such investigations will admit. The following are the quantities of wheat estimated to have been produced in that country during the under-stated years.
| Qrs. | |
|---|---|
| 1847 | 2,926,733 |
| 1848 | 2,945,121 |
| 1849 | 2,167,743 |
| 1850 | 1,550,196 |
“It will be seen from these returns that the diminished production of wheat in Ireland corresponds very nearly in amount with the falling off exhibited by the returns of the corn-law inspectors in England. The aggregate amount of decrease in the two countries is about three million quarters.”—Morning Post, June 24.
Thus it appears that the falling off in wheat alone, raised in England and Ireland in four years, has been, under the action of Free Trade, about 3,000,000 quarters. The average consumption of wheat in Great Britain, prior to the late changes, was estimated by our best authorities at 14,500,000 quarters, being a quarter a head on the people, excluding infants, and persons, especially in Scotland, who live on oatmeal or potatoes. Thus more than a FIFTH PART OF THE STAPLE FOOD OF OUR PEOPLE has, in four years of Free Trade, come to be furnished from foreign states. If the supplies of oats and Indian corn, which are immense, and amount, with wheat, to about 10,000,000 quarters annually, are taken into account, it may safely be concluded that a fourth of the food of our people has come, in four short years, to be imported! Liverpool has told us that, in five years, half of this immense supply will be brought in in foreign bottoms! Truly we are advancing at railway speed to a state of entire dependence on foreign states for the most necessary supplies; and we shall soon realise in these realms the lamentation of the Roman annalist, that the people have come to depend for their food on the winds and the waves; or, in Claudian’s words—
“Semper inops
Ventique fidem poscebat et anni.”
Three-fourths of these immense supplies come from two countries only—Russia and America. Can we say that we are independent for a year together, when either of these powers, by simply closing their harbours, can reduce us to scarcity—the two together to famine prices? If a fourth of our subsistence is cut off by an ukase of the Autocrat of Russia, or a mandate of the imperial people in the United States, where will be the food of the British people? Both these powers were at war with us at the same time in 1811;—are their dispositions now so very friendly, and our interests and theirs so little at variance, that we can rely upon the like thing not occurring again? And if it does occur, could we hold out three months against a second Non-Importation Act, passed in either country?