The point on which the nation at large is principally interested, is, of course, the price of bread. It is quite evident that the cost of manufactured flour ought, in all cases, to remain in just proportion with the value of the raw material. Unfortunately that proportion is not always maintained. The baker is a middleman between the farmer and the public, between the producing and the consuming classes. Amongst those who follow that very necessary trade, there exists a combination which is not regulated by law; and the consequence is, that, whenever a scarcity is threatened, the bakers raise the price of the loaf at pleasure, and on no fixed principle corresponding with the price of corn. Few persons are aware at what rate the quartern loaf ought to be sold when wheat is respectively at 50s., 60s., or 70s. per quarter: they are, however, painfully sensitive when they are subjected to an arbitrary rise of bread and their natural conclusion is, that they are taxed on account of the dearness of the grain. The number of those who buy grain or who study its fluctuations, is very small; but every one uses bread, and the monthly account of the baker is a sure memento of its price. Let us see how the middle functionary has behaved.
Why is Bread so dear?
"The price of bread is very high already, and is not likely to fall; and the reason a baker would assign for this is the high price of wheat—a very plausible reason, and to which most people would too good-naturedly assent; but examine the particulars of the case, and the reason adduced will be found based on a fallacy. During all the last year, the aggregate average price of wheat never exceeded 56s. a quarter, and in that time the price of the 4lb loaf was 5½d.; at least I paid no more for it with ready money. The highest mark that wheat has yet attained in this market, is 88s. per quarter, and it is notorious that this market has, for the present year, been the dearest throughout the kingdom. As 10s. a quarter makes a difference of 1d. in the 4lb loaf, the loaf, according to this scale—which, be it remarked,
is of the bakers' own selection—should be at 8½d. when the wheat is at 88s. Can you, nevertheless, believe that, whilst the present price of bread is 8½d. the loaf is made wholly of wheat which cost the bakers 88s. the quarter? The bakers tell you they always buy the best wheat, and yet, though they are the largest buyers in the wheat market, the aggregate average of the kingdom did not exceed 58s. 6d. on the 8th November. The truth is, the bakers are trying to make the most they can; and they are not to blame, provided their gains were not imputed to the farmers. But we all know, that when bread gets inordinately high in price, clamour is raised against dear wheat—that is, against the farmer—and this again is made the pretext for a free trade in corn; whilst the high price secured to the baker by the privilege of his trade is left unblamed and unscathed."
Had the Court of Session thought proper to retain in observance the powers to which it succeeded after the abolition of the Privy Council, and which for some time it executed, we certainly should have applied to their Lordships for an Act of Sederunt to regulate the proceedings of Master Bakers. But, as centralisation has not even spared us an humble Secretary, we must leave our complaint for consideration in a higher quarter. Our correspondent, however, is rather too charitable in assuming that the bakers are not to blame. We cannot, for the life of us, understand why they are permitted to augment the price of bread, the great commodity of life, at this enormous ratio, in consequence of the rise of corn. Surely some enactment should be framed, by which the price of the loaf should be kept in strict correspondence with the average price of grain, and some salutary check put upon a monopoly, which, we are convinced, has often afforded a false argument against the agricultural interests of the country.
Such we believe to be the true state of the grain crop throughout the kingdom generally. How, from such a state of things, any valid argument can be raised for opening the ports at this time, we are totally at a loss to conceive. The only serious feature connected with the present harvest, is the partial failure of the potato crop, to which we shall presently refer. But, so far as regards corn, we maintain that there is no real ground for alarm; and further, there is this important consideration connected with the late harvest, which should not be ungratefully disregarded, that two months of the grain season have already passed, and the new crop remains comparatively untouched, so that it will have to supply only ten months' consumption instead of twelve: and should the next harvest be an early one, which we have reason to expect after this late one, the time bearing on the present crop will be still more shortened. Nor should the fact be overlooked, that two months' consumption is equal to 2,000,000 quarters of wheat—an amount which would form a very considerable item in a crop which had proved to be actually deficient.
But as there has been a movement already in some parts of Scotland, though solely from professed repealers, towards memorialising government for open ports on the ground of special necessity, we shall consider that question for a little; and, in doing so, shall blend the observations of our able correspondent with our own.
Such a step, we think, at the present moment, would be attended with mischief in more ways than one. There can be no pretext of a famine at present, immediately after harvest; and the natural course of events in operation is this, that the dear prices are inducing a stream of corn from every producing quarter towards Britain. In such circumstances, if you raise a cry of famine, and suspend the corn-laws, that stream of supply will at once be stopped. The importers will naturally suspend their trade, because they will then speculate, not on the rate of the import duty, which will be absolutely abolished by the suspension, but on the rise of price in the market of this country. They will therefore, as a matter of course—gain being their only object—withhold their supplies, until the prices shall have, through panic, attained a famine price here; and then they will realize their profit when they conceive they can gain no more. In the course of things at present, the price of fine wheat is so
high, that a handsome surplus would remain to foreigners, though they paid the import duty. Remove that duty, and the foreigner will immediately add its amount to the price of his own wheat. The price of wheat would then be as high to the consumer as when the duty remained to be paid; while the amount of duty would go into the pockets of the foreigner, instead of into our own exchequer. At present, the finest foreign wheat is 62s. in bond—remove the present duty of 14s., and that wheat will freely give in the market 80s. the quarter.